


the world was on fire and no one could save me but you

by hakyeonni



Series: little incubus [9]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs in a Car, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 21:01:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10499403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: as sanghyuk's life falls apart in his hands, he finally realises what it means to be immortal.





	1. one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean for it to get this long I'm sorryhsjgkssdjkfg
> 
> This is the hyukbin-centered instalment—they were long overdue for one. But dooon't worry, no one is neglected. Promise.

When Sanghyuk wakes screaming for the third time that week, his mind filled with visions of black eyes and white wings and _pain_ , he doesn’t even have the heart to be surprised anymore.

“Hush,” Hakyeon whispers, folding Sanghyuk into his arms and holding him. “I’m here. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“Does it ever get better?” he sobs helplessly, clinging to Hakyeon, his salvation. “Does it ever stop?”

Hakyeon takes a deep breath in, and when he lies to Sanghyuk the words are so saccharine sweet on his tongue that he can pretend to believe for a while.

//

“You have to feed.”

Hongbin’s voice is soft, gentle, but his words cut Sanghyuk to the core. He’d been doing so well, he knows, so so well. But now he can’t leave Hakyeon’s apartment without seeing Taekwoon’s face everywhere he turns, and it’s terrifying, so much so that he finds he can’t breathe a lot of the time. Two weeks, it’s been two weeks since Christmas, and he’s running desperately low on energy, only scraping by with kisses from Hakyeon and Hongbin. He should feel guilt, really, but he can’t. All he can feel is fear and the hunger that permeates everything.

“I can’t,” he says, and shifts a little closer to Hongbin. They’re lying on Hakyeon’s sofa, because once again the apartment has become his haven. He feels like he’s switched places with the Hakyeon from a month ago; he’s out enjoying himself while Sanghyuk’s trapped in these four walls. His only solace is Hongbin, whose touches soothe him in a way he’s never experienced before. Sanghyuk just tries to tune out how cold his skin is.

“You have to,” Hongbin insists, placing two fingers under Sanghyuk’s chin to turn his face towards his. He looks so concerned that a wave of nausea rises in Sanghyuk, and he vaguely pushes it away. “You can’t keep living like this. You’re wasting away in front of my eyes.”

He closes his eyes as Hongbin brushes a kiss to his forehead. He’s hungry, desperately so, but he’s also weak—and the thought of feeding fills him with so much dread he can barely stand it. “I always thought I’d be good at this,” he murmurs. “Immortality.”

“You wanted to be turned?” Hongbin’s tone is so incredulous it’s like he’s never even considered the concept before, which is possible. Sanghyuk doesn’t know much about how Hongbin was turned, only that it wasn’t his choice. In fact, he knows nothing about how any of the others became immortal; Hakyeon rarely mentions it, and the look on his face when Sanghyuk’d asked about it had ensured he’d never asked again.

“Eventually.” He shrugs and struggles upright so he’s sitting up. “The moment Hakyeon told me what he was, I wanted it for myself. The way he phrased it made it sound so easy. I had to have sex to live as a mortal, too, so it didn’t seem that different.” Hyper-aware of Hongbin’s eyes boring through him, he looks at the carpet, silently marvelling at how he can see the fine fibers that make up each thread. “I just didn’t expect so much baggage to come along with it.”

He was naïve, he knows that now, looking back. You don’t get such a gift like immortality without giving something up—and right now, it feels like he’s given up a piece of his very soul. Dramatic of him, perhaps, but there’s something missing inside him, something that’s been missing since Taekwoon came to him in the darkness.

Hongbin rises off the sofa and pulls Sanghyuk with him, his face grim. “You need to feed,” he says again, and the look on his face tells Sanghyuk he’s not going to take no for an answer. “Come on. Shift some clothes on.”

Restlessly, Sanghyuk wraps his arms around himself, feeling very small indeed. “I can’t. No energy.” Miserably, he realises this is yet another facet of being an incubus he is failing at; he doesn’t even have enough energy to shapeshift, the very thing that makes him so unique.

Hongbin’s face softens, and when he cups Sanghyuk’s cheek he leans into the touch instinctively. Hakyeon can barely remember what it was like in the beginning—although Sanghyuk wonders if he ever even struggled in the first place—and Wonshik doesn’t even try to relive the past, but Hongbin remembers, and it’s with this knowledge that Sanghyuk lets himself be dragged towards the bedroom he has co-opted as his own. Hongbin felt this fear, too, and he’d come out the other side just fine. If he can do it, Sanghyuk can too. He just has to give himself a chance.

//

He gets dressed sluggishly, slowly, fueled only by what residual energy he has left. Hakyeon isn’t even around to give him a boost—ever since Christmas, he’s been flitting in and out of the apartment more often than he was before, and he doesn’t answer when Sanghyuk asks where he’s going—and he feels guilty about taking so much from Hongbin, so he just suffers in silence. At least Hongbin has a car, which means they don’t have to walk everywhere like Hakyeon insists they do. Instead, Sanghyuk gets to slump against the window and stare out at the snowy world as it zooms past.

“Who taught you how to drive?” he asks faintly.

Hongbin glances over at him. The streetlights catch the shadows of his face exquisitely, and Sanghyuk marvels at how, out of all the years and centuries gone by, they’ve somehow found a quiet companionship between themselves. “Hakyeon. He’s really interested in new technology, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. As soon as cars were invented he was all over them.” He shrugs and shifts down a gear. “Wonshik, on the other hand, still wishes it was 1416.”

“They really are polar opposites, aren’t they?” Sanghyuk muses to himself, breathing on the glass of the window and drawing a squiggle. “Amazing that they’re still friends.”

“Well, you know what they say.” Hongbin takes his hand off the gearstick to wind their fingers together and squeeze. It hurts, a little, because Hongbin’s _really_ strong—but Sanghyuk gets that the gesture is meant to be sweet. “Opposites attract and all that.”

When Hongbin brings Sanghyuk’s hand to his lips and kisses it, he feels rather than sees the scrape of fangs against his skin, and his breath hitches in his throat. Sometimes, just sometimes, when they’re curled up on the lounge together watching TV, or in Sanghyuk’s bed reading the news together, he forgets. It’s so easy to, when Hongbin looks just like any other human; he’s a little paler, a little colder, but when his fangs are retracted and his eyes are brown he can pass easily. But then he’ll read something that pisses him off and his eyes will flash red, or he’ll turn to Sanghyuk and comment that he’s thirsty and how he’s going to heat up some blood—and it hits him. He’s an immortal, they both are, and Hongbin’s the stuff of literal nightmares. And yet Sanghyuk can’t stop fucking him.

“Don’t do that,” he chides, but there’s no heat to it and when he snatches his hand back Hongbin lets him go. “You’ll make me jump you right here.”

Hongbin waggles his eyebrows salaciously. “I mean, do you wanna test if I can still drive while getting my dick sucked? I’m not opposed.”

Shrugging, Sanghyuk shifts in his seat to slide a hand over the inside of Hongbin’s thigh. It’s extremely satisfying to feel Hongbin stiffen in his seat, anticipating the touch, and when Sanghyuk leans closer he sees Hongbin’s eyes flash red. “It doesn’t matter if we crash, anyway,” he murmurs into Hongbin’s ear, biting gently on his lobe. “We’re immortal.”

With Hongbin’s lips parted like this, Sanghyuk can see—in high definition close-up detail, thanks to his incubus senses—Hongbin’s fangs, glinting in the light. It’s so easy to make Hongbin come undone like this; he responds to Sanghyuk’s touches so enthusiastically. When he cups Hongbin’s cock, he isn’t surprised to find he’s half-hard already.

“It’s _really_ hard to focus when you’re doing that,” Hongbin mutters, his voice low and throaty.

His words say one thing, but his body tells another story, and when Sanghyuk thumbs open the button of his pants and slowly undoes his fly he shifts his hips upward, craving the contact on his cock. Sanghyuk’s sure his eyes are glowing yellow, and the urge to feed nearly overwhelms him, even though it’s slightly pointless since Hongbin doesn’t have much to give. “Now you’re complaining?” he breathes, pulling Hongbin’s cock free and giving it a few languid strokes.

Hongbin narrows his eyes. “I’m not complaining, I’m just—ah! Sanghyuk!”

He’s interrupted, of course, by Sanghyuk folding at the waist and leaning down to take his cock into his mouth, and all Sanghyuk hears then is a choked noise and the squeak of Hongbin’s hands on the leather of the steering wheel. So easy, he thinks, as Hongbin holds his head down. Is he good at what he does because he’s an incubus, or was he always destined for this? Or is Hongbin just particularly susceptible to his charms? He doesn’t know and doesn’t really care as he feeds on Hongbin’s energy without even realising, the instinct coming to him as naturally as breathing.

“Fuck,” Hongbin growls, winding a hand through Sanghyuk’s hair and yanking him up off his dick. The movement shouldn’t be hot, but with the sharp stab of pain comes the pleasure, and Sanghyuk bares his teeth ferally at Hongbin. Being interrupted in the middle of feeding is never a nice sensation. “I’m actually going to crash the car if you do that.”

With a smirk, Sanghyuk settles back in his seat, watching as Hongbin tucks his dick away with hands that are slightly trembling. He knows Hongbin’s right—also knows that he has no self control, and will feed on Hongbin given the slightest opportunity—but still he sulks a little, snatching his hand away when Hongbin goes to take it and poking his tongue out playfully at him.

Like this, with the warmth of the car enveloping them, it’s easy for him to forget.

//

The tiny smidgen of Hongbin’s energy is enough for him to be able to shift on a coat and beanie when they leave the car and begin walking. This is a nice district, a little more upmarket than the ones he usually goes to to feed, and he instantly feels like he doesn’t belong. His bank statements aren’t small by any means, thanks to the work he was doing before he was turned, but Hongbin’s had a hundred years to build his wealth and it shows. So he just follows along behind Hongbin, holding tightly onto his hand and feeling like a child. He’s desperately trying to keep the anxiety at bay, and it’s helped—somewhat—by the fact that there are mortals everywhere, laughing and enjoying the cold night. Hongbin’s assurances that he knows a great place to feed ring in his ears, but he isn’t paying much attention to what he’s saying. He doesn’t pay much attention when Hongbin leads him to the mouth of an alley, either, and only startles out of his trance when Hongbin drops his hand, making it clear this is the ‘great place’ he was talking about.

“An alley,” he deadpans, folding his arms over his chest. “Really?”

Hongbin turns at that, perhaps because his voice is laden with so much sarcasm it could probably be heard from space. “Yeah, why? This is where I usually hunt. It’s easy.”

Although this alley is nothing like the one Taekwoon ambushed him in—that was dark, this is bright and open, with a few mortals milling about—he still feels himself beginning to shake, like the walls are pressing in on him. A distant part of him wonders if he’ll ever be able to get over this and move forward, but a much louder part of him is wondering if Hongbin is completely oblivious or just plain stupid. “First of all,” he begins, counting off on his fingers, “you are _such_ a vampire stereotype. Second of all, are you forgetting that an alley just like this is where I, you know, died? Third of all, I can’t hunt here. Alleys and sex don’t exactly have a good reputation.”

“Hakyeon fucks people in alleyways all the time,” Hongbin points out, looking confused. It’s endearing on his face, and Sanghyuk wants to step closer to him, but he digs his fingers into the fabric of his coat instead.

“Hakyeon seduces people in a club and _then_ fucks them outside. There’s a difference. Not to mention Hakyeon could seduce anyone, anywhere, with just a look. He could probably seduce a priest in church if he wanted to.”

Hongbin raises an eyebrow. “He has.”

“Exactly my point!” Sanghyuk cries somewhat exasperatedly. “He’s been doing this for ages. I haven’t, so my…” he wrestles with the word, not wanting to say victims but not really sure what to call the people he feeds from. “My partners need to be drunk to want to fuck me when I’m as new as I am. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“No.” Hongbin shrugs. “But there’s a club nearby we can go to, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

Letting out the breath he didn’t realise he was holding—he does not want to stalk mortals in an alley, doesn’t want to become the thing that hunts in the shadows like Taekwoon—Sanghyuk slumps slightly. “Yes, please,” he replies, holding out a hand to Hongbin. “Lead the way.”

He can’t help but feel as if Hongbin’s slightly pissed off with him for not approving of his nice hunting place, but it makes him feel slightly sick. How many innocents has Hongbin pounced on, right here? How many lives has he shortened, or _ended?_ How is Sanghyuk supposed to come to terms with the fact that he can’t be repulsed at that without being repulsed at himself—because they do the exact same thing, just in different ways. He’d thought he was okay with this. He thought he was coping. But every time he takes a step forward, he seems to take another three backwards—and how can he ever start moving past this if he’s constantly being pushed back?

//

The club that they end up going to isn’t like Hakyeon’s usual haunts—that’s to say, it’s not a haven of lust and sin, and is actually a relatively normal club where it seems all people want to do is dance. That makes his job a little harder (he isn’t going to get laid here tonight, is what that means) but not impossible. Hongbin’s glamour is so strong that nothing is a challenge for him anymore, but Sanghyuk has to actually work at it, so he heads to the bar and orders a round of drinks for them both. It’s still early in the night, and he knows that his best chance is to start off slow and easy, to get eyes on him gradually—and he also knows that his best way of doing that is by dancing. He’s not Hakyeon, by any means, but he’s alright, and imbued with alcohol and the desperation of an incubus on the cusp of starving to death he shouldn’t have too much trouble.

“Watch me,” he mutters into Hongbin’s ear as he downs his shot in one go and slides past him, heading to the dance floor.

Like this, fueled by the heat of Hongbin’s gaze—which is so hot and heavy it’s like a cloak over him—he dances and drinks and dances and drinks until he’s drunk from the vodka and high off nothing but the atmosphere. Even though he’s out of the house, and Taekwoon’s face is still in he back of his mind, this place is different enough from where he was attacked that he can let loose a little. Besides, Hongbin’s watching over him, and Sanghyuk knows he won’t let anything happen to him. Dozens of people come up and dance with him, and some he feeds from, although he does nothing more than kiss, and even then only in dark corners. Most of them are women, which is certainly a change from how he used to be. He still won’t sleep with women, of course, but kissing them? Well, energy is energy, and when he’s this desperate it’s easy to close his eyes and ignore the curves underneath his hands.

When he meets up with Hongbin at the bar, his eyes are dark, but Sanghyuk can’t tell if it’s from lust or something else entirely. He’s too drunk to care, anyway, and when he cups Hongbin’s cheek it’s with a blatant affection that he doesn’t bother to hide. “You’re pretty,” he slurs happily.

“And you’re drunk,” Hongbin sighs, looping an arm around Sanghyuk’s waist to tug him in closer. “Have you had your fill yet?”

Sanghyuk shakes his head and flits away, back into the crowd. Even with how drunk he is, he can tell that there is something decisively _off_ about Hongbin—but he doesn’t know him well enough to say what it is, or what it’s caused by. He’s too buoyed by the feeling of having energy for the first time in a long time, and even if he can’t shift surrounded by all these people it’s nice to know he could if he needed to. He didn’t realise how quickly he became dependant on shifting, but now it’s hard to live without, and not only because it makes his life easier. He swings so wildly between feeling so out of touch with his incubus self, to embracing it, that it’s almost enough to give him whiplash.

He’s dancing by himself when someone taps him on the shoulder, and he turns, fully expecting Hongbin. Instead, the woman standing in front of him is instantly, disturbingly familiar, and even with how intoxicated he is he recognises her.

“Noona,” he breathes.

She’s struggling with her emotions, Sanghyuk can tell—she never was any good at hiding them, as was he. Surprise, confusion, sadness, anger; they’re all there. “Sanghyuk,” she says, and her voice is like music to his ears.

He almost leans in to hug her. It’s been, what—three years? Four? They used to be so close when they were children, and now there’s a gulf between them. But then he remembers what his parents said to him the day they threw him out, and how his sister didn’t stand up for him. He remembers the anguish ripping him apart from the inside out. He remembers her stony silence. Worst of all, though, is how he sees her with his new eyes and he realises—she is mortal. He is not.

He shoves past her, making a beeline for the bar. He doesn’t even make it that far, because Hongbin appears in front of him, his fangs bared, searching for the danger. “I need to go,” he gasps, clutching on to the vampire, his saviour. “I need to go _now_.”

“Taekwoon?” Hongbin practically snarls as he pulls Sanghyuk close. Any other time the protectiveness would be cute, but right now it’s just suffocating, especially as he can hear his sister calling his name from over his shoulder.

“No.” He starts towards the exit as quick as he can, shrugging himself free of Hongbin’s grasp. “I’ll tell you outside. But right now—I just—I need out. Get me out of here.”

The cold hits him in the face like he’s just been run over, so visceral and raw that it immediately sets his teeth to chattering. He doesn’t pause, though, doesn’t even shift on a coat—he powers forward, tugging Hongbin after him, charging down the street with a single-minded determination that leaves him empty in its wake. He only makes it as far as a block before Hongbin digs his heels in, pulling them both to a stop.

“Don’t,” Sanghyuk warns, turning back to look at him.

Hongbin narrows his eyes. “Who _was_ she, Sanghyuk? You can’t just run away like that and not tell me what you’re running from. I thought it was an immortal, not some human who kind of smells like y—oh.” Understanding blooms on his face, and the sight of it makes Sanghyuk want to throw up. Hongbin takes a step closer, but Sanghyuk wrenches his hand free and wraps his arms around himself, only now realising how fucking cold it is. “Was she… is she… family?”

Sanghyuk can tell that the word doesn’t belong in Hongbin’s mouth, like he hasn’t said it in years. “My sister,” he mutters, staring down at the light dusting of snow on the ground. “Can we go home now? Please?” When he looks back up at Hongbin, he takes in the way the snow seems to swirl around him without quite sticking. Is that an immortal thing, or a Hongbin thing? “Wait, did you feed?”

“Yeah, a few times.” Hongbin shifts their grip so their fingers are intertwined and tugs Sanghyuk gently closer. This time when he reaches out to touch, Sanghyuk doesn’t shy away, and instead leans into the caress. Hongbin’s fingers ghost over his lips, and he shivers. With the snow falling all around them, Hongbin’s not the coldest thing in the vicinity for once; he’s actually warm, and Sanghyuk sighs gently. “None of them tasted as good as you, though.”

When Hongbin pulls him into a kiss, Sanghyuk doesn’t resist. He doesn’t have the heart to, not when they’re enveloped in their own little world, not when Hongbin’s hands settle on his waist like they were meant to be there. He’s never had a boyfriend before—never really had the chance, and never wanted to—but the whole concept, so foreign to him previously, suddenly blooms into being like it was always on the cards for them. It could be easy, if they let it, and suddenly he _wants_.

“Let’s go home,” he blurts, pulling away because he can already feel the urge to feed waking up inside, and he doesn’t want their sweet moment to be transformed into something fueled by nothing but heat.

As they resume walking—albeit this time at a much more leisurely pace—Sanghyuk feels a little warmer on the inside, and wonders if this is what having feelings for someone is all about. The pain at seeing his sister is still there, of course, and as is his anxiety about Taekwoon, but with Hongbin by his side they’re sort of muted and easy to drown out.

//

“Hakyeon’s home,” Hongbin says as they’re in the lift up to Hakyeon’s apartment. He narrows his eyes and cocks his head to the side. “And full. I could have sworn…” He shakes his head, like he’s confused at what he’s sensing. “Never mind.”

Sanghyuk knows this because he’s tied to Hakyeon in a way that he still doesn’t quite understand—and Hongbin’s right. Hakyeon is in the apartment, full of energy, and extremely happy. “You can sense all that? We’re not even that close to the apartment,” he replies as the doors open onto Hakyeon’s floor.

“I’ve always been sensitive.” Sanghyuk didn’t realise vampires could blush, but there’s a definite hint of colour on Hongbin’s cheeks as he ducks his head. “To immortal stuff, I mean. When I was human, I could tell Hakyeon and Wonshik were different. I didn’t know how, though.”

The others speak of their mortal lives so rarely that Sanghyuk collects these details like treasures, holding them close to his chest lest they slip through his fingers. He knows Hakyeon was a gisaeng, although he never really paid attention in school so what, exactly, a gisaeng is is a little fuzzy. Wonshik was a minister in court, he knows, and he’s heard King Sejong’s name thrown around a few times. And now he knows that Hongbin has an affinity for—for the supernatural? He’s hardly an expert on all of this, and he doesn’t know why they are the way that they are. Maybe it’s magic, or maybe it’s some mystery of science that hasn’t been discovered yet. But whatever it is, Hongbin’s tapped into it.

“You’re home!” Hakyeon cries the moment they step through the door, Hongbin shedding his coat and hanging it up neatly on the rack. He practically skips over to them, and Sanghyuk doesn’t even have the chance to raise an eyebrow before Hakyeon yanks him into a kiss that deepens before he even realises what’s happening.

The way they fit together is so different from the way Hongbin’s body fits with his it’s almost striking—but somehow, it works, and Sanghyuk has no idea if it’s because they’re intrinsically tied or because there’s always been a spark between them. He doesn’t care either way, because he’ll never ever get tired of Hakyeon kissing him like this. His hands come up to cup Hakyeon’s face automatically, and he sighs as Hakyeon tastes his energy.

“And _you’re_ reprehensible,” Hongbin growls as he stomps past them to the kitchen.

Any other time it would be a playful insult, but this time there’s a genuine undercurrent of malice to his words, and Sanghyuk pulls away from Hakyeon automatically. There’s a beat of silence where Hakyeon just stares after Hongbin, shocked, but then he recovers with a grace that Sanghyuk quietly envies. “Why, Hongbin,” he begins, moving into the kitchen and leaning against the wall. Sanghyuk’s a step behind him, twisting his fingers together anxiously. “Did you not feed enough tonight? Are you _grumpy?_ ”

The last word is said with a deliberate teasing intonation, and before Sanghyuk can do anything Hakyeon crosses the floor to spin gracefully, slamming the fridge door shut and blocking Hongbin from opening it again. He tilts his head to the side and strokes his neck, an invitation. “Because you can bite me, if you want.”

This whole night has been a comedy of errors from the start, but this takes the cake. Hakyeon’s almost acting high, but Sanghyuk can feel through the bond that he hasn’t taken any drugs. He’s not even drunk. He’s just really full of energy, and that’s made him extremely elated, apparently. Sanghyuk doesn’t know if he’s pressing Hongbin’s buttons deliberately, or is just being hyper, but his heart jumps into his throat as Hongbin shoulders past him again, stomping down the hallway. When he turns his head, Sanghyuk can see the shadow of a scowl on his face, and then he’s gone and there’s nothing but the echo of a slammed door between them.

“I’m going to bed, because I really don’t think this night could get any weirder,” Sanghyuk declares faintly to the kitchen, not speaking to anyone in particular.

Hakyeon turns. “You okay?” he asks softly, and the concern on his face is mirrored in the feelings Sanghyuk is getting through the bond.

 _No_ , Sanghyuk wants to say. _It has been several months since I’ve been okay, and when I’m not terrified for my life I’m running from my demons, which insist on rearing their heads at every opportunity. Oh, and now you and Hongbin are being weird._ But he just raises one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, not even caring that when he speaks it’s such a blatant lie that Hakyeon must see through it before the words are even out. “I will be after some sleep.”

“Okay. Sleep well.” Hakyeon pulls him in for a quick hug, squeezing him gently.

He can tell when he gets into the bedroom that Hongbin isn’t asleep, and not least because there’s still an hour to go until dawn. But he shifts away his clothes and slides between the sheets anyway, pulling Hongbin close because he can’t be bothered to try and detangle the mess that is the night’s events. Thankfully, though, Hongbin doesn’t resist, and when Sanghyuk presses a kiss to his shoulder he hums quietly under his lips.

They lie there like that for a few moments, Hongbin so cold and still in his arms that it’s almost like he is sculpted from marble. But then he takes a breath in—and the fact that he has to consciously remind himself to do that still freaks Sanghyuk out—and speaks, and his voice is so quiet it’s little more than a sigh. “Your sister, back in the club…”

There’s an unspoken question in his words, but Sanghyuk deliberately plays dumb. “What about her?”

“Why did you run away from her?” Hongbin turns over, and Sanghyuk’s slightly surprised to see he looks hurt. “She’s your _family.”_

He wonders if, perhaps, this isn’t Hongbin projecting his own pain from his family onto Sanghyuk’s life. It would be valid if Sanghyuk knew the first thing about Hongbin and how he grew up, but he didn’t—only that his family is long-dead by now. He doesn’t even know where to begin explaining his family troubles, anyway, since it’s a saga that’s old and tired and has been hashed out a thousand times over all across the world. It used to hurt, to tell—when he’d told Hakyeon he’d cried a river of tears, so many that he’d sure he didn’t have any more. But now? Now the pain is dulled by the sepia tones of the past, the line that slashed across his life when Taekwoon killed him. It happened to a different Sanghyuk, one who had hope on his tongue and life in his eyes, and so when he speaks he doesn’t even feel the hurt anymore.

“My parents threw me out on my eighteenth birthday,” he begins blandly. “I came out to them a week before. I don’t know why I ever thought that was a good idea. I should have known they’d do what they did.”

Hongbin turns so he can look at Sanghyuk, and his expression is blank, unreadable. “You… they threw you out because you’re gay?”

“It’s not that uncommon. No one talks about it, but it happens. They didn’t care that I had no job, no money. I haven’t spoken to them since.”

“And your sister?”

He sighs. “My sister didn’t say a word. She watched me walk out that door and never said a damn thing to stop me. I like to think she was on my side but too scared about what my parents would say to say anything, but that kind of cowardice didn’t help me survive. She tried to contact me a year later, but I changed my phone number. I didn’t need her pity. Or her money. Hakyeon’s my family now.”

Hongbin’s silent for a moment, before slowly reaching out to brush Sanghyuk’s hair out of his eyes. “Is that why… you did what you did?” he takes a breath in, like the words hurt him to speak. “Selling your body, I mean.”

Sanghyuk knows what’s coming before he even says it, but still he doesn’t stop himself from getting defensive. He did what he had to do to make a living, and he isn’t ashamed of it, but the judgement he gets from others is monumental. It’s why he spent so much of his time alone, and why Hakyeon was his only friend for a long time. Hakyeon’s the _only_ person who has never judged him for what he does, not once. Even now there’s an undercurrent of worry in Hongbin’s words, like Sanghyuk was forced into this. “No,” he replies evenly, resisting the urge to back away from Hongbin’s touch. “I did that because I wanted to, because I’m good at it, and because it’s easy money.”

“Okay.” Hongbin’s hand falls away from his face. If he’s really as sensitive as he is, he can probably feel the indignation that Sanghyuk’s vibrating with. “I just… worry about you.”

He _knows_ that this is coming from a place of concern, and he knows, rationally, that he shouldn’t get irritated. Hongbin is well-meaning, in the purest way, and Sanghyuk knows this. But instead a hot flare of irritation burns through him. “I can take care of myself,” he says, biting his tongue so as not to snap at Hongbin, because his rage is misplaced here. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

The irony of this is, of course, that Hongbin has a great deal to worry about when it comes to Sanghyuk—his near-constant panic attacks; his agoraphobia; his inability to cope with change. But his job is not one of them. It never has been, and he’s fed up with the assumption that he needs to be fixed somehow.

Hongbin doesn’t reply, but when he reaches down and takes Sanghyuk’s hand he lets him. Dawn is coming, he can feel it, and with the dawn comes Hongbin’s natural tiredness—and Sanghyuk’s own, since he’s on a vampiric schedule too. He knows it’s not good to hold onto anger overnight, but he still clutches it close to his chest, allowing it to worm its way through his blood to nestle in his heart. It takes seed there, a little sliver of bitterness, making his tongue taste foul as he gives in to sleep and drifts backwards.


	2. two

Faded voices, whispers, nothing but ghosts of impressions on his brain. A touch on his forehead, fingers skimming over his lips. “Sanghyuk,” Hakyeon sighs, and Sanghyuk rolls away from him.

“You can’t keep babying him.” Sanghyuk knows that voice, but sleep still has her arms wrapped around him, and he can’t picture who it is. The words aren’t kind, but the intonation is. “He’s getting better. You said he fed last night.”

Hakyeon touches him again, on the back of his neck, and he hums with pleasure. He’s so sleepy he barely knows where he is, only that this feels nice and that he’s on the verge of slipping back to sleep. “He pretends. But the bond doesn’t lie. Something shitty happened last night. I felt it, but he didn’t tell me.” Hakyeon takes his hand back and sighs again. “I need to come home more often. I need to be there for him.”

There’s a noise that Sanghyuk recognises, but again it’s on the tip of his tongue and he’s just too tired to care. Hongbin is still in bed next to him, he vaguely realises, cold and dead. “I know you’re worried about him,” the other voice says quietly, “but I really do think he will be alright. You’re already doing so much for him.”

A pause. Another sigh. Hakyeon’s footsteps crossing the room. “I hope so,” he mutters, and Sanghyuk gives up on trying to stay awake any further.

//

By the time Sanghyuk wakes up properly, Hongbin’s gone from the bed, and when he blearily sits up and feels the bond he realises Hakyeon is nowhere close, either. He’s still so sleepy that the thought of being so alone fills him with a weird kind of joy—now he can take an absurdly long bath, or go shopping, or blast his music loudly (Hakyeon’s not opposed to loud music, but they have extremely different tastes), or do literally anything else his heart desires.

Then, of course, he remembers that he can’t leave the fucking apartment because the thought of doing so alone makes him break out into a cold sweat, and even the thought of being inside alone is enough to have him clutching a hand to his stomach, already feeling nauseous. Taekwoon knows where he is, Taekwoon will _always_ know where he is, and the only thing stopping him from appearing right now is—well, Sanghyuk’s not privy to the intricacies of immortal politics, but it seems like Taekwoon operates on his own schedule. Therefore the only thing stopping Taekwoon from turning up here and killing him, again, is his own whims, and it’s patently clear he’s insane. He closes his eyes, but all he can see is Wonshik stabbing Taekwoon in the thigh with the dagger—the same dagger he’d found digging through his stuff in his own apartment. It had been handed down to him, some ridiculous family heirloom that he had no use for whatsoever, and he’d thought it would be a nice gift for Wonshik, who likes both old things and pointy things. Christmas had been the last time he’d seen the fucking thing, since Taekwoon had vanished with it still in his hand, only after pulling it from his thigh and _licking_ it—

Sanghyuk rolls out of bed, wrapping the sheet around his shoulders and barging down the hallway to the living room. It’s half out of a bizarre desire to make sure that Taekwoon isn’t standing _right there_ , like he was before, and half out of a desire to get away from his thoughts. The sun streams through Hakyeon’s windows and he blinks blearily at it, his eyes adjusting faster than they used to as a mortal. The living room is empty, as he knew it would be, if a little messy, and he flops down on the lounge and tries to control his breathing. He really should go back home and finish going through his stuff—he’s been quietly tidying up in preparation for selling the place, although he hasn’t breathed a word of that to Hakyeon in case he starts making him pay rent—but the thought of going outside makes him curl into himself instinctively.

Instead of giving into the desire to become a burrito on the sofa, he gets up and heads back into his co-opted bedroom, yanking open the bedside table drawer and pawing through it for the phone he so rarely uses. The thing his fingers close on, though, is his old work phone—a shitty brick phone that doesn’t even have a camera. He hasn’t turned it on in months, not since he was turned, but for some reason he presses down the button to turn it on, not really knowing why but figuring it’d be nice to have a slice of normality back.

The texts start rolling in after that, and he gives up and puts it on silent, letting it vibrate away endlessly as he blasts his favourite album over Hakyeon’s speakers and sits down in front of the TV to play Mario Kart (something Hongbin still hasn’t really gotten the hang of). It vibrates for a solid 20 minutes with unread texts, and is still going when Sanghyuk hears the front door opening behind him and turns to see Hakyeon, his swipe card for the lift in his mouth and his arms full of plastic shopping bags. He grunts at Sanghyuk, narrowing his eyes, and through the bond Sanghyuk hears _get over here and help me with this shit._

“What is all this?” Sanghyuk asks, taking an armful of bags from Hakyeon and putting them on the kitchen bench.

Hakyeon rolls his eyes and elbows Sanghyuk in the side playfully. “Food. Use your eyes.” He fishes out a paper bag that has a distinctive burger smell and shoves it into Sanghyuk’s hands. “And this is lunch, or breakfast, or whatever. You’re welcome.”

It’s hard to be on-edge when Hakyeon’s around, especially when he’s still riding whatever high he was last night. So Sanghyuk cups the back of his neck and pulls him in for a quick kiss that doesn’t turn out to be quick at all. In fact, Hakyeon backs him up against the bench and slips his hands underneath his shirt before he can even process what’s happening, and he arches up into his touch instinctively. It’s not like Sanghyuk has any previous experience with this, and he doesn’t have any other incubi he can ask, but it seems that he and Hakyeon simply cannot keep their hands off each other. Not that he cares much, not when Hakyeon lifts him up so he’s sitting on the bench, tugging Sanghyuk’s shirt up and over his head.

“Hyung,” he whines half-heartedly. “My food.”

Hakyeon can almost certainly feel that Sanghyuk’s protests are hollow, but he pulls back anyway, raising an eyebrow and smirking. “Oh, my apologies, then,” he snipes, his voice laden with sarcasm. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Sanghyuk’s too quick, though, and locks his legs around Hakyeon’s waist to tug him back closer. “No,” he replies, before winding a hand in Hakyeon’s hair to tip his head back.

He’s already looking up at Sanghyuk, but like this he can see the way Hakyeon’s pupils dilate ever so slowly, watch his tongue come out to wet his lips. The push-pull they have between them, have always had, shows no signs of slowing down even though now they’re both immortal. If anything, his skin burns _more_ when Hakyeon touches him, humming with some sort of low magic that he can’t even begin to understand. It feels right, though, comfortable and homely, and when Hakyeon pushes in to kiss him he nearly whines. How can anyone possibly resist Hakyeon? How has the world not fallen to his feet already? He isn’t even being glamoured and he wants to give him the universe.

“What is that noise?” Hakyeon asks as he kisses his way down Sanghyuk’s chest, one hand wrapped around his thigh, edging closer to his already-hard cock.

Sanghyuk’s too enraptured by the way Hakyeon nips at his nipple to process the words properly, but when he does he realises Hakyeon’s asking about his work phone, still vibrating away on the sofa. “Um, my old phone,” he gasps, tightening his legs around Hakyeon’s middle. “I found it and turned it on.”

That makes Hakyeon pause, and he pulls back slightly, or at least as far as Sanghyuk’s legs will let him. “Wait, your hooker phone?” Sanghyuk raises an eyebrow, both as a confirmation and a mild protest to the language, and Hakyeon’s mouth drops open. “You’re thinking of going back to work? You didn’t tell me that!”

Before Sanghyuk can move, Hakyeon smoothly jabs him in the side, making him yelp and open his legs wide. Now free, he bounds across the floor to swipe Sanghyuk’s phone from the sofa, scrolling through the endless messages with wide eyes. Sanghyuk slides off the kitchen bench and strides after him, tackling him around the waist and sending them both down to the sofa, but Hakyeon clutches onto the phone and holds it out of his grasp. “Gimme!” Sanghyuk yells, pinning Hakyeon down and reaching desperately for the phone.

“Look at all these messages!” Hakyeon murmurs, splaying a hand on Sanghyuk’s chest and keeping him away easily. “I didn’t realise how popular you were. Are these all new clients, or some of your regulars?”

“My regulars probably think I died.” He folds his arms over his chest, not caring how petulant he looks. “I mean, I did die. But they don’t need to know that. I don’t know. This is a backlog of three month’s worth of texts. I’m probably going to have to get a new number.”

Hakyeon’s eyes flick between him and the phone, and Sanghyuk can feel the curiosity burning in him. “Are you really thinking about going back to work, or did you just turn this on because you were bored?”

He _had_ only turned it on because he was bored and wanted to see what he’d missed, but now that Hakyeon’s raised the possibility of him going back to work he finds he _wants_ to. Once he gets over his fear of leaving the house, of course; otherwise he’s just going to have to take incalls, something he always avoided because his apartment was his space. But he doesn’t live there anymore, so what he’d planned for later—way later—suddenly swims into possibility for the near future.

“I don’t know,” he muses, crawling off Hakyeon to flop on the floor next to him. He reaches down and winds their fingers together, for nothing more than the intimacy, the skin contact that makes him hum with happiness. “I… didn’t think of it. I think I kind of want to, though.”

By speaking the words, he makes them true, and when he sits up Hakyeon follows. “I think it would be good for you.” He ruffles Sanghyuk’s hair playfully, but there’s some emotion not dissimilar to concern that comes through when he speaks. “But I think…” he sighs. “I think you should talk to Hongbin about it first.”

“Hongbin? Why?”

Hakyeon’s raised eyebrow says more than his words ever can. He gets up off the ground and pulls Sanghyuk with him, heading back to the kitchen and throwing the previously discarded paper bag to him. “I’m not saying you need his permission,” Hakyeon starts. “I’m just saying, because you guys are seeing each other, maybe you should discuss it. He’s very… traditional.”

“Traditional?” Sanghyuk looks up from where he’s shoving a handful of fries into his mouth. “He’s a gay vampire!”

“Okay, okay. But my point still stands. Just… raise it with him.”

And, of course, therein lies the rub, because he and Hongbin haven’t discussed anything of that nature yet; they haven’t begun to define their relationship, if even if there is one. Sanghyuk likes Hongbin—he’d even go so far as to call it a crush, which is something he’s not familiar with—and he likes fucking him, but he also likes fucking a lot of other people too (not to mention he has to do it to _live)_. He’s never been tied down by anyone before, and doesn’t relish the prospect, even if it’s something that he and Hongbin have never even talked about. When he gets his mind set on something he wants to do it and he wants to do it _now_. Going back to work is no exception. He doesn’t want to feel like he has to ask Hongbin about every little thing that he wants to do, even if the more logical side of him is telling him that Hakyeon is right—as he so often is.

He wanders back down the hall, burger in hand, shrugging off Hakyeon’s warnings to be around the night after next for New Year’s, his mind far away.

//

“Hey,” he says mildly, pulling open the door. Hongbin’s standing there, his hands behind his back, looking bashful. “You’re late!”

Instead of the celebrations being held at Hakyeon’s apartment, Sanghyuk had put his foot down and insisted that he host—after the disastrous Christmas, he’s determined not to have another drunken evening at Hakyeon’s for a long time, even though Taekwoon probably knows where he lives so it’s pointless anyway (the problem with an omniscient enemy is that they are, well, omniscient)—which had involved some kickback from the vampires. Obligingly, he’d light-proofed the spare bedroom, taping down the blinds and double checking for any gaps (he doesn’t exactly knows what happens to a vampire in the sunlight, but he doesn’t want to find out) anal-retentively. It gave him something to focus on, something to do, something to keep his mind off the way his thoughts kept drifting to his clients and how much he actually misses working. Most of his clients had been regular guys, desperately seeking an outlet; some had wives, girlfriends, were living a lie. Sanghyuk both pitied and admired them. If he had done that, he wouldn’t be here right now, staring at a vampire who’s smiling so sweetly at him, the sight marred slightly by the way his fangs are out. Hongbin isn’t really late; it’s only seven, and he’d instructed the others to come around at nine, figuring that was enough time for them to talk things out.

“Sorry, traffic was bad,” Hongbin sighs, shifting from foot to foot.

Sanghyuk turns away from the door and heads back to the kitchen. He’s stocked up on booze for the night—a lot of it, since Hakyeon seems to be able to drink and drink and drink—as well as food, although he isn’t sure if the vampires will be able to eat the doritos and salsa he’d found at the corner shop. He doesn’t even realise Hongbin isn’t following him until he’s fishing a bag of blood out of the fridge, and looks back over his shoulder, surprised. He’s still languishing in the doorway, looking uncomfortable.

“You have to invite me in,” he says, almost apologetically.

“Huh,” Sanghyuk replies, after a pause. He folds his arms over his chest. “Dracula got something right after all. Fine, then. I suppose you can come in.”

He barely has time to react before Hongbin enters, slamming the door shut behind him and picking Sanghyuk up in his arms. It’s not a lustful touch, or one fueled by passion; Hongbin is just hugging him, exuberantly and with enthusiasm, and faintly Sanghyuk remembers how strong he is. It’s easy to forget, when he looks like he does normally. “Here, these are for you,” he says breathlessly, shoving what’s in his hands at Sanghyuk.

There it is again, that blush, creeping up his cheeks. It’s delicate and soft, and without even thinking Sanghyuk lays a hand on Hongbin’s cheek, watching as Hongbin smiles shyly at him. _What have you gotten yourself into?_ his head screams at him, but he ignores it, too busy wrapped up in the warm feelings that spread behind his breastbone, so exquisite in their newness. When he looks down at what Hongbin’s given him, he nearly rolls his eyes—it’s a bouquet of red roses, bright and vibrant, just like the colour of Hongbin’s eyes.

He presses a quick kiss to Hongbin’s lips and turns away, shifting away his own blush. “I’ll get these a vase!” he blurts, aware his voice is high-pitched, resisting the urge to babble.

He does not quite know what to do with romantic gestures such as these. No one has ever given him flowers before; he didn’t even realise it was a thing people did. Things that only happen in the ridiculous dramas his mother used to watch are suddenly happening to him, and he simply doesn’t know how to cope with it—the gestures, or the feelings they represent. Instead of thinking about it, though, he keeps opening the same two cupboards over and over again, looking for a vase that he knows doesn’t exist, because who the fuck owns a vase? In the end he gives up and uses a glass, stuffing them in it and staring at it dubiously.

“I think you’re meant to cut the stems.” Hongbin’s arms wind around his waist and he leans into the touch automatically. Even though Hongbin runs quite a bit colder than he does, it’s still soothing, in a way he doesn’t know if he’ll ever understand.

“I don’t have scissors.”

Hongbin snorts softly. “You don’t have _scissors?”_

He turns to face Hongbin, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Why would I need scissors? I never cook.”

“Neither do I, but I still have scissors,” Hongbin points out in return.

Making a joke out of it, Sanghyuk disentangles himself from Hongbin’s arms and pulls out one of the knives from the knife block that’s languishing, dusty and unused, on the bench. He means it when he says he never cooks; he was never any good at it when he was mortal, and his hunger seems to reach a certain point that it never goes beyond now that he’s immortal. According to Hakyeon, he doesn’t have to eat at all, but he still likes the routine of it. He pulls the roses free of the water and chops off the bottom of the stems, biting back a smile as even this relatively simple cut comes back rough and jagged, and goes to put them back in the glass—and pricks his hand on a thorn, wincing and dropping the flowers on the bench on instinct.

“Let me,” Hongbin says smoothly, his eyes already glowing red.

Hakyeon had never let them meet when Sanghyuk was mortal because, according to him, Hongbin’s not the greatest at managing his thirst. But his movements, when he reaches out towards Sanghyuk’s hand, are slow and controlled, and Sanghyuk doesn’t feel afraid as Hongbin brings his hand to his lips, licking at the wound—nearly directly in the middle of his palm, _stigmata_ , he thinks—before sucking on it gently. It’s intimate, disturbingly so since they’re standing in the middle of his kitchen while he gets his blood sucked by a fucking vampire, but with his other hand he reaches out to tuck a lock of Hongbin’s hair behind his ear, feeling nothing but closeness between them. They’re well past that point, anyway; Hongbin’s drunk from him more times than he can count, and he enjoys the sensation. He closes his eyes and sways a little on his feet, his toes curling with the feeling of it. He doesn’t even realise that Hongbin’s kissing his way up his palm until he feels the scrape of fangs on the inside of his wrist.

 _Weak_ , he thinks. _You’re fucking weak_. When did that happen? When did just a flash of Hongbin’s fangs turn him into such a harlot? He doesn’t even care that he moans involuntarily, fist clenching, eyes fluttering open to see Hongbin staring at him. His gaze is so weighty it’s almost something physical, and it’s so hard for Sanghyuk to comprehend right now, when his brain feels like cotton wool and he can barely focus on anything except that feeling, of cold fang against the thin skin of his wrist. Hongbin keeps looking at him like that as he bites down gently, his fangs piercing the skin, blood welling up nearly instantly.

“Hongbin,” he says, although it comes out more like a moan as he uses his other hand to push Hongbin’s head down, encouraging him to drink. “I invited you over to—to _talk.”_

“Can it wait?” When he looks up, Hongbin has blood smeared around his lips, looking not dissimilar to lipstick.

They really should stop. Sanghyuk has spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours worrying himself sick over what Hongbin would say to the bombshell that he’s going back to work. He’d invited him over early for that exact reason. And yet, and yet, he pushes Hongbin’s head back to his weeping wrist, not even caring that when he speaks the tremble of his voice indicates he’s too far gone to stop this. “Yes,” he replies.

Hongbin’s other hand splays on his thigh, and automatically he spreads his legs, tipping his head back so it hits the cupboard. It’s absurd that having his blood sucked should feel _this_ good, but Hongbin had explained it previously—along with the release of endorphins from the pain, his magic makes it pleasurable, not unlike a glamour. It usually comes instinctively, but he can control it if he wants, could make it hurt for Sanghyuk, not that he ever would. He whimpers as Hongbin licks the wound to close it, his tongue swiping across his skin before he pulls Sanghyuk in for a kiss. Like this, pressed up against each other, Sanghyuk can feel that Hongbin’s hard, and he has to bite back a moan.

He’s just about to grab Hongbin by the collar and shove him over to the lounge when Hongbin drops to his knees like a stone, his hands coming to rest on Sanghyuk’s hips, his fingers curling around the top of Sanghyuk’s waistband. “Uhhhh,” he says dumbly as Hongbin mouths his cock, fluttering his eyelashes so innocently.

This isn’t what he had in mind for the evening—he rather wanted Hongbin to fuck him on the couch, or even better, on the floor, rough and hard and scratching an itch inside him that he doesn’t even realise he had—but now that Hongbin’s undoing the button on his pants and sliding his fly down ever-so-slowly, he can’t find the words to protest. He moans long and loud when Hongbin frees his cock and licks a stripe up the length of it, his tongue circling around the head, already slick with pre-come. It’s not like he’s never gotten a blowjob before, and this certainly isn’t the first time Hongbin’s sucked his dick—but Jesus, every time is better than the last, and before long he’s writhing, Hongbin making him come undone so easily.

“You’re so pretty,” Hongbin blurts, coming off Sanghyuk’s cock to jerk him off lazily, his hand wet with his own saliva.

It’s almost like he didn’t mean to say the words, and there it is again, that gorgeous hint of pink on his cheeks. Sanghyuk decides he likes Hongbin like this, on his knees and blushing, and tucks a lock of hair behind his ear affectionately. This thing they have isn’t just about sex, which is why it’s hard, he realises—all he knows is sex. Sex is easy. But how, when Hongbin winks at him before sinking his mouth over his cock again, his heart skips a beat? How he doesn’t just want this, now, he wants this maybe forever? That’s hard, and with the feelings comes the fear.

He moans, long and loud, burying his fingers in Hongbin’s hair, the strands so silky and fine underneath his fingertips. It’s not going to take much for him to come—he hasn’t had release like this for a week, at least—especially when Hongbin is so fucking good at what he does, setting the pace exactly the way Sanghyuk likes it. When he opens his eyes, the vision of Hongbin with his lips wrapped around his cock is nearly too much to stand, and his chest goes kind of tight. His mouth is so hot and wet—so, so hot, so so wet—that it’s nearly unbearable, and he screws his eyes shut again just so he doesn’t have a heart attack. He’s close, teetering on the edge, but then Hongbin starts moaning wantonly around his dick and that just pushes him over the edge. The sound of him, as well as the vibrations—he gasps and stutters, his toes curling as he comes in Hongbin’s mouth, whining as Hongbin keeps sucking him off through it.

“Fuck,” he breathes, hauling Hongbin to his feet and kissing him, tasting himself. He’s out of it still, aftershocks making their way through his body, and he’s hyperaware of the press of Hongbin’s fangs on his lip. “Fuck me.”

Hongbin pulls back a little, and his eyes—albeit red—are sparkling. “Actually,” he says, shyness on his tongue, “I wanted… to try something.”

Sanghyuk’s eyes widen. In the three years he’s been working, he’s seen—and done—it all; nothing surprises him anymore. He’s shocked because Hongbin hasn’t asked anything like that before, and certainly not in that tone of voice. This is a concession, he knows, so he nods, holding onto Hongbin’s waist and waiting.

“I want to…” Hongbin sighs. “I want to fuck your thighs.”

He nearly laughs. He can’t help it. It’s the most vanilla of requests, and yet Hongbin is acting like he’s asked Sanghyuk to tie him up and flog him. But he holds it in and chucks Hongbin under the chin instead, making him meet his eyes and swooping in and kissing him. “Yes, please,” he whispers, tugging Hongbin closer and grinding their hips together. “God, _please.”_

At his enthusiasm, Hongbin bares his fangs, and it’s like a switch is flipped in him—gone is the chaste blushing maiden. _This_ Hongbin grabs Sanghyuk by the wrist and yanks him down the hall to the bed, shoving him down on it and ripping his clothes off before he can even get a chance to shift them away. It’s furious and fast, hot breaths and words and Hongbin’s eyes flaring red at him through the darkness—Sanghyuk feels himself getting hard again at being manhandled like this; he can’t help it. He’s always been a slut for being thrown around, and he’s always weak for Hongbin.

There’s a moment of hesitation once they’re both naked, where Hongbin’s hovering over him, wanting but also unsure, and it’s the sweetest damn thing Sanghyuk has ever seen. He has never met someone who is as contradictory as Hongbin—so soft one moment, so rough the next; a killer and a lover all wrapped up in one. His vulnerability is endearing, and Sanghyuk tries not to let his affection show as he tugs Hongbin closer, shutting his legs and swinging them up so they rest on Hongbin’s shoulders as the vampire kneels in front of him. That movement—and Hongbin’s realisation of what he’s about to do—has him switching back into scary vamp mode, and he hisses, his fingers digging into Sanghyuk’s calves. “Lube?” he asks, but he sounds hoarse.

Sanghyuk fumbles in the bedside drawer for it, cursing as his fingers close on condom after condom (not something he needs now he’s immortal and therefore immune to every disease on the planet) but not the lube, finally finding it languishing in the back of the drawer. He whines when Hongbin squirts it on his thighs, because it’s fucking _cold_ and Hongbin hadn’t given him any warning—but then he catches the look on Hongbin’s face and reconsiders complaining. Sanghyuk has never seen him this intense before. It’s intoxicating, and he lets himself relax into the bed as Hongbin’s slick hands slide between his thighs, the lube running down his ass to pool on the sheets.

“Oh,” Hongbin squeaks as he slides his cock between Sanghyuk’s clenched thighs, one hand gripping his ankles for leverage, the other digging into the flesh of his hip. “Oh.”

Sanghyuk’s fully hard, now, and whines as Hongbin thrusts experimentally, his eyes wide. Like this—with Sanghyuk on his back—Hongbin has a great view of his whole body, so he stretches, tipping his head back against the pillows so Hongbin can see his neck and, therefore, his pulse. Fuck. _Fuck_. He’d never thought thigh fucking could be this erotic, but Hongbin’s gaze is lighting him on fire from the inside out, and he can feel that he’s leaking pre-come on himself. He must look a mess: sweaty, flushed, fucked-out without being fucked. But he knows Hongbin likes him like that, so he plays it up, whining and biting his lip as he locks eyes with the vampire. It’s entirely worth it to hear Hongbin’s moan shift up in pitch, to feel his fingernails dig in to his flesh, to see him slowly come undone.

“So—pretty—” Hongbin’s voice is reedy, thin, desperate, and Sanghyuk watches as a bead of sweat rolls down his temple. “Sanghyuk, _fuck!”_

He isn’t particularly surprised when Hongbin turns his head to the side, licking at a spot on his calf before sinking his fangs in and drinking—he just wasn’t expecting it, and he nearly rolls away from the pain, his body tightening in response to the feeling. This hurts a little more, since Hongbin is biting directly into his muscle, but he resists the urge to pull away and is rewarded with liquid pleasure floating through his veins. He reaches down towards his cock, craving release, but Hongbin hisses at him so he refrains, whining; he loves being denied pleasure, loves their push and pull, but fuck if it’s not frustrating. His fingers wind in the sheets instead, the pressure almost too much—he’s close to coming again, he realises belatedly. _Shit_.

“Please, Hongbin, come for me, please,” he whines, loudly because he doesn’t care if he sounds desperate—he _is_ desperate, and he lets it bleed through because he knows it fucks with Hongbin’s head.

Apparently Hongbin was close anyway, since with another stuttering thrust he comes, groaning with his mouth still latched onto the wound on Sanghyuk’s leg. The sight of that—of Hongbin’s come spurting all over his own cock, his belly, his thighs—pushes him over the edge again, and he comes as well, curling his hand around his cock at the last minute in an attempt to draw out the orgasm. He’s all sparks and flames, his skin burning up as Hongbin flops onto the bed next to them, flinging an arm over his eyes dramatically. For a moment they lie there like that, separate but together, Sanghyuk trying to return his breathing to normal and Hongbin—well, Hongbin’s not breathing at all.

“You said you wanted to talk?” Hongbin eventually says, rolling over and propping himself up on an elbow to take in Sanghyuk.

Sanghyuk groans, sitting up and wincing at the mild stab of pain from both his leg and palm. He usually ends up with more than one bite wound after sex with Hongbin, though, so that’s no surprise. “One-track mind.” He turns around and swipes playfully at Hongbin, grinning. “But we should shower. The others will be here soon.”

By the look on Hongbin’s face he’d forgotten about the others entirely, and Sanghyuk laughs long and loud as he rolls off the bed and pads down the hallway, trying to disguise the fear that curls in his belly when he thinks of telling Hongbin he’s going back to work.


	3. three

“So you’re a year older now, huh?”

Sanghyuk’s drunk, to no one’s surprise. He’s leaning on the kitchen bench, waving a finger accusingly between Wonshik and Hakyeon, who are seated at opposite ends of his sofa. He’d made his way over here to get… something—probably doritos—and had just found it more comfortable to lean, in case he fell over. Hongbin is starfished on the floor, for reasons no one can fathom; he doesn’t even look up at the sound of Sanghyuk’s voice.

“Three hundred and eighty-seven years,” Hakyeon crows, throwing his arms up in the air. “And I don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

“Five hundred and seventy-four for me,” Wonshik adds.

Shrugging, Sanghyuk grabs the doritos and traipses over to where Hongbin is, dropping the bag of chips on his chest. “And you guys don’t know your birthdays because…?”

“Did you not pay attention in school? I was born sometime in summer, but I don’t know exactly when. Only the King got that privilege.” Leaning over, Hakyeon swipes the bag from Hongbin’s chest. “Wonshik’s the same. Things were different back then. We celebrated getting a year older on Lunar New Year’s—tonight.”

“Not me,” Hongbin blurts as Sanghyuk sinks down on top of him, sitting on his hips. “I have a birthday. So I’m still technically ninety-seven. At least until March.”

It’s easy for Sanghyuk to dig his fingers into Hongbin’s waist, making him jump, especially because he’s so drunk that it’s hilarious when Hongbin squeals. “This shit is confusing,” he groans, screwing up his face. “Is that, like, your mortal birthday? Or when you were turned?”

“You don’t need to worry. You’re still zero years old,” Hakyeon snipes not unkindly.

It’s with a grace that he didn’t even realise he still had that Sanghyuk rises off Hongbin to take a flying leap onto the sofa, grabbing Hakyeon in a headlock and holding it tight even as he struggles, laughing. Wonshik, for his part, is inching away from them slowly, his eyes wide, pretending like he’s never seen roughhousing before. “I’m twenty-one,” Sanghyuk yells to no one in particular, half-joking but half-not.

“Yeah, but you’re twenty-one… _forever_ ,” Hongbin intones melodramatically, rolling his eyes back in his head so only the whites can be seen, cackling as Sanghyuk reaches out to kick him but only connects with his arm.

Even with the teasing—that he suspects will never abate, because now Hongbin isn’t the youngest and doesn’t get the brunt of it— Sanghyuk realises he feels happy, an unfamiliar warmth spreading from his chest outwards. He feels safe here. He doesn’t know if it’s because it’s an entirely different setting to Christmas, or because of Jaehwan’s absence, but for once he’s not terrified that Taekwoon’s going to show up and crash the party. For once he can just exist, and relax, and appreciate the little bubble of happiness and warmth he has with his new friends.

“Alright,” he slurs, letting go of Hakyeon and pushing him away. With one hand he points to the TV, and with the other he points at Hongbin, raising his chin in a challenge. “Who’s going to try and beat Hongbin at Mario Kart?”

Wonshik groans, but Hakyeon leaps for the controller, yelping when Sanghyuk pushes him mid-air so he lands funny on his knee. For a moment they wrestle again, Hakyeon eventually getting the upper hand and pinning Sanghyuk to the floor, leaning over him and blowing him a kiss. Sanghyuk swears he’s about to bust a rib from laughing so hard when he looks over and catches Hongbin’s eyes—and there it is again, that same clouded expression he’s noticed a few times before, the one that he cannot identify. He stops laughing immediately, because Hongbin doesn’t look happy—he looks pissed off, really—and the last thing he wants tonight is anyone to be unhappy.

It’s another hour after that before Hakyeon looks up from Mario Kart, his eyes landing on Sanghyuk, and quirks his head. “New Year’s resolution?”

“Is that an open question, or are you targeting me?” Sanghyuk snuggles a little closer to Hongbin, sighing when Hongbin’s arm loops around his shoulder to tug him closer.

Wonshik, looking up from Mario Kart—Sanghyuk was surprised he knew how to play it, but he’s actually even better than Hakyeon—rolls his eyes. “He does this every year. Get used to it.”

“Okay then, asshole,” Hakyeon mutters. “You first. What’s your resolution?”

“Ditch my annoying incubus friend?” Wonshik doesn’t even dodge the punch that Hakyeon throws, just lets it land on his arm with a grin, and Sanghyuk can’t hide his smile. For two people who act like they don’t like each other a lot of the time, it’s become patently clear to him that Wonshik and Hakyeon have a bond that’s nearly as deep and as strong as his and Hakyeon’s. “I don’t know, if I’m honest. Drink a president’s blood? It’s been a while since I did that.”

“Yuck, but fair. Hongbin, your turn,” Hakyeon replies.

Hongbin is silent for a long moment, and when he speaks he can’t even look at Sanghyuk. “I think… I think my resolution is to, um. Is to make Sanghyuk smile. At least once a day.”

Hakyeon and Wonshik turn around in creepy unison, their eyes wide, but Sanghyuk’s frozen where he is, glued to Hongbin’s side with his smile fixed on his face. He doesn’t know how to react to that. He doesn’t even know how to _begin_ reacting to that. Just when he thinks Hongbin cannot possibly get any more cute, can’t worm his way into Sanghyuk’s heart any more, he says something like _this_ —something that has Sanghyuk’s heart racing. He knows the others can all hear it, and closes his eyes against the mortification as Hakyeon howls with laughter.

“I have never, not once, been so glad that I’m single until now,” Wonshik deadpans over the sound of Hakyeon’s exaggerated gagging noises. When Sanghyuk looks at him, though, he can see his eyes are sparkling with amusement, and Hakyeon is grinning even as he has his finger down his throat.

“How are you going to one-up _that?”_ Hakyeon crows to Sanghyuk, flopping back on the floor, one hand to his chest. “God, young love. So sweet.”

He doesn’t have the finesse to shift away his blush, not when he’s this drunk, so he just fixes his eyes at a spot on the carpet and grits his teeth. His New Year’s resolution isn’t sweet, or sappy, and he’s trying to ignore the fact the way Hakyeon had said _love_ makes him feel sort of sick. He doesn’t love Hongbin—not yet, at least—but he has no idea what Hongbin feels, and it’s terrifying. “My New Year’s resolution,” he starts, his voice even, “is to finally go back to work.”

He knows, instantly, that he’s said the wrong thing because Hongbin stiffens, going as straight as a board. His arm is still around Sanghyuk, and he squeaks as he’s pulled back inadvertently; Hongbin is so strong, so so strong, that Sanghyuk thinks even he forgets it sometimes. Wonshik’s face is emotionless, but Hakyeon’s eyes are flicking between the two of them as Sanghyuk scoots out form underneath Hongbin’s arm. The distance between them on the sofa is suddenly multiplied, and he can’t even meet Hongbin’s eyes—he feels _guilty_ , but he’s too drunk to start dissecting why.

“That’s great news!” Hakyeon eventually says, reaching out to pat Sanghyuk on the knee encouragingly. “You’re lucky that you already have a reputation. It’ll be so easy for you to feed from now on.”  
  
“If my reputation isn’t already shot from my hiatus,” Sanghyuk points out through gritted teeth. “Hakyeon, your turn. What’s your New Year’s resolution?”

Hakyeon chews on his bottom lip for a moment. “My resolution is… to value those I love more.” Looking down at the ground, he splays his hand on the carpet and Sanghyuk sees his shoulders move as he takes a deep breath in. “I don’t think I did that properly last year… and we all suffered because of it. I won’t let that happen again.”

Sanghyuk is startled to feel guilt through the bond, separate to his own—this is Hakyeon’s, and when their eyes meet he realises that Hakyeon is still feeling terrible over what happened to him, what Taekwoon did. He didn’t expect that. Hakyeon’s feelings towards seeing him become more and more housebound seemed to just be concern, most of the time, not guilt. But with the alcohol removing whatever walls he’s thrown up, his shame smacks Sanghyuk in the face with its depth, and he inhales shakily. He cannot bring himself to blame Hakyeon. None of this is any of his fault; all he’d wanted to do is fuck Jaehwan—Sanghyuk can’t blame him—and things had just escalated from there.

(Part of him knows that he isn’t blaming Hakyeon because he still has not come to terms with the fact that he’s immortal—despite the fact that it’s been _three months_ —but he ignores that part).

“Hyung,” he breathes, sliding off the sofa into Hakyeon’s lap, hugging him. “It’s okay.”

With the weight of him, and the touch, he feels Hakyeon relax underneath him, and buries his head in the crook of Hakyeon’s neck. He’s so warm, radiating heat from every pore, and so comforting that Sanghyuk finds himself relaxing, too. He can’t be bothered trying to separate the way Hakyeon makes him feel as his maker and the way Hakyeon makes him feel as Hakyeon, not right now, so he just rubs circles on Hakyeon’s back. “It will be okay,” he mutters into his skin, letting himself believe it for once.

//

The days blur into each other. Winter suddenly decides to rear its head, again, dumping a huge flurry of snow over the whole city, so Sanghyuk holes up in his own apartment and finishes tidying it up. He reconsiders selling it when the job’s all finished—as nice as it is living with Hakyeon and being in such close proximity to him, it’s also nice to have his own bolthole to escape to when Hakyeon decides he’s going to bake a cake and nearly burns down the apartment, or uses a particularly fragrant bath bomb that stinks up the place, or brings home a screamer.

He doesn’t see Hongbin for that whole week, although it’s not for wont of trying. He sends a text that goes unanswered— _hey, you okay? how goes vamp business?_ —and tries not to take it personally (and fails). Instead of dwelling on it, though, he puts out an ad, gets a new phone number, and takes his first client incall. It’s just one of his regulars—Sungjae, someone who’s been coming to see him since he started work, tall and skinny and always ready with a quip and a raised eyebrow—and nothing special, but still his heart is racing out of his chest the entire time. It’s not until he’s sitting on his bed afterwards, laced with Sungjae’s life energy and staring at the cash on his bedside table, that it sinks in what he’s done. After that, he can’t stop grinning. Things really are getting better.

He’s lying on the sofa one evening, debating whether it’s worth making the trip across town to Hakyeon’s for food, when his phone rings. It’s Hakyeon, and he knows this before he even sees who’s calling. “What are you doing tomorrow?” he blurts the moment Sanghyuk picks up the phone, not even bothering with a greeting. “Clear your schedule. We’re doing something.”

“Who is we?” Sanghyuk asks, rolling over and staring out the window at the sun setting.

“You and me, at first, and then the vamps will join us later, when the sun sets. We can go to the winter festival that’s on at the moment! I thought it would be fun.”

Sanghyuk can think of a great many things that would be more fun than traipsing around in the snow with Hakyeon, but he’s not about to say that. Besides, they haven’t seen each other in a week. He can live without Hakyeon, of course, but it’s just pleasant to be around him. “Okay,” he acquiesces. “Where is it?”

“I’ll take Hongbin’s car,” Hakyeon says breezily with the confidence of someone who has done exactly that many times in the past. “I’ll pick you up at 5, so make sure you wake up in time.”

“It’s okay. I’m not really on a vampire schedule anymore.”

A pause. Hakyeon takes a breath in, and then lets it halfway out, humming. “Okay… We can talk about that in person. I hope I don’t need to kick Hongbin’s ass. Because I will.”

They hang up, and Sanghyuk stares at his phone for a while, eyebrows furrowed and a strange sense of dread curling in his stomach. He has nothing to be worried about, he knows. He’s slowly getting better with leaving his apartment, and besides, he’ll have the others for protection; Hakyeon won’t let anything happen to him. No, this is more a general sense of apprehension focused on seeing Hongbin again. He doesn’t know whether to feel angry that Hongbin’s shutting him out over something that he has made clear is part of who he is—he was a man of the evening long before he met Hongbin—or depressed that things had been going so well and now aren’t, and it’s a fucking head trip. One that he really cannot be bothered with right now, he realises, hauling himself off the sofa and trying to swallow his doubts.

//

To his surprise, he enjoys the festival more than he thought he would. It’s just nice to wander around, arm in arm with Hakyeon, licking at ice cream (“ice cream? In winter?” he’d said dubiously, staring up at the board with the flavours on it; Hakyeon had just ignored him and marched up to the counter to order) and seeing all the ice and snow sculptures. Being out of the house is terrifying at first, but he gets used to it, and by the time the sun is starting to set Hakyeon is dragging him towards the ice-skating rink.

“Oh, no.” He baulks, digging his heels in, but Hakyeon continues regardless, dragging him along. “I will not.”

“You _will_ ,” Hakyeon replies, his tone indicating there is to be no arguing. “You’re immortal. This should be easy for you.”

Sanghyuk’s not too sure what his newfound ability to live forever has to do with his grace—or complete lack of it—on the ice, but he reluctantly shifts on skates and follows Hakyeon, holding onto his hand for dear life. From the looks of everyone else skating around, this is meant to be a romantic activity, but romance is the furthest thing from his mind as he toddles around and tries not to fall over. Hakyeon does have a point, sort of; he’s having a bit of an easier time than he would if he was mortal, but not by much. He’s still very ungainly, and scowls when Hakyeon lets go of his hand to go twirling away, looking at home on the ice as he does on earth. Everyone else plods, but Hakyeon glides, and with how stunning he looks today—with so much white around, the golden glow of his skin stands out even more—it’s hard for Sanghyuk to stay mad at him.

“Come on!” Hakyeon cries, grabbing Sanghyuk by both hands, skating backwards and speeding up. “It’s fun if you just stop worrying.”

The same could probably be said of a lot of things in Sanghyuk’s life, really, but it’s not as easy as Hakyeon makes it out to be. He tries, though, because he knows Hakyeon wants him to—and he finds that when he lets go of his worries and stops caring what he looks like, it is kind of fun. He hasn’t done this for years, not since he was a kid, and before long he’s giggling madly, breath condensing on the air as he clutches onto Hakyeon desperately.

And then, of course, as these things go, he turns his head to the side and sees her.

The last place he expects to see his sister is here, and yet there she is—standing there, her arms wrapped around herself, her skin nearly as pale as all the snow around them. Her hair is blowing back into her face, and as he watches she raises a gloved hand and pushes it away, her lips parted, eyes wide. His heart nearly drops out of his stomach. Why _here?_ Why _now?_ Can he not have peace for more than a week without something going wrong in his life?

He isn’t surprised when his legs give out from underneath him and he goes spinning onto the ice, landing painfully on his hands and knees, scraping them. Hakyeon picks up on the profound anguish that is suddenly coursing through him and kneels, too, placing his hand on Sanghyuk’s cheek. “What is it? Oh, Sanghyuk, you’re bleeding.” He reaches for Sanghyuk’s hands, taking them in his own and squeezing gently.

“I need to leave,” he says faintly, because he can feel the panic starting to rise.

Hakyeon doesn’t ask any questions. He just helps Sanghyuk to his feet and loops an arm around his waist, supporting his weight, shifting on boots and marching them towards the exit of the rink. Sanghyuk manages to keep his eyes trained downwards the entire time, focusing on the thin lines of blood running down his fingers, until they’re off the ice and heading towards where Hakyeon had parked the car.

“Sanghyuk,” she calls, and he turns.

It’s not even that he misses her that much; she has her own life to live, now, and they have grown apart in those three long years that he was estranged from his family. But she represents something bigger than just herself. She represents his family, his morality, his humanity; three things he’s sure Taekwoon took away from him that night. When their eyes meet, a jolt runs through him, and Hakyeon hesitates. What must she think of him? He sees her eyes flick to Hakyeon, taking him in, and narrow questioningly. Does she think they’re a couple? Does she care?

He’s too busy staring at her to notice the man coming up behind her, and when Sanghyuk finally looks at him the vague feelings of panic sharpen into something that rips him open entirely. His father is standing there, looking at him, _judging_ him—and he looks old. He looks _old_. How did that happen? There’s grey in his hair that wasn’t there before, and his face is wrinkled, cracks and canyons covering his face, making him almost unrecognisable. It’s only been three years. How could he have changed so much in such a short time?

His father is mortal, he realises, standing there. The distance between them is nothing compared to the knowledge that he is finally saddled with. They are _mortal_. They will wither and die and he will not, he will go on living forever, untouched by time because he steals it from others. The sudden knowing, the awareness, hits him, and he swears his heart stops in his chest. He wishes it would. His family—the only thing he had, three years ago—mean nothing. They will wither and turn to dust and they will _die_. He won’t. He never will.

He finally realises what Taekwoon took from him.

“Hakyeon,” he chokes out around the panic, “I need to… I need to go, I need to go now.”

Moving quickly, Hakyeon scoops him up in his arms and barrels them away, sprinting towards the car. Sanghyuk clutches him desperately and closes his eyes, trying to focus on how cold the wind is as it blasts them, trying to ignore the urge to open his eyes again and look at his father. He will not see them again, he knows. Maybe he’ll visit their graves, in the future, a hundred years down the track when they’re all dead and he’s still alive. But they are dead to him now.

By the time Hakyeon reaches the car, he’s shaking and crying so hard he can’t see, and he bleats pathetically when Hakyeon shoves him in the backseat before coming around the other side to slide in next to him. Oxygen is suddenly so hard to find, and he knows he can’t die—he is painfully aware of that fact—but still he gasps, choking, sobbing, howling, clutching onto Hakyeon because he knows he’s going to float away if he doesn’t. It feels like his heart is being ripped from his chest, it hurts so badly, and he screws his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to see Hakyeon seeing his shame.

“It’s okay,” Hakyeon’s saying, stroking his hair, his back, his face, everywhere he can touch, trying to calm him down. He is beyond that, he knows. “It’s okay, Sanghyuk. I’m here. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go.”

“My family,” he sobs, biting off the syllables helplessly. “They’ll… Hakyeon, how do you… How… It hurts so much.”

He’s not making any sense, but how can he when all that’s running through his head is the fact that he’s _never going to die?_ He doesn’t have to make sense, though, because Hakyeon is feeling what he’s feeling, and knows what he means. He isn’t alone, even though he feels it, so just slips his hands underneath Hakyeon’s shirt to palm his back and sobs brokenly, the weight of the knowledge crushing him.

Time moves weirdly after that. He doesn’t really know how long they stay there for, Hakyeon holding him and whispering sweet nothings to him, peeling him out of his jacket when he starts to sweat and letting him have sips of water from a bottle he’d found languishing in the footwell (it tastes stale, but he hardly cares). When he finally stops crying, and when his breathing finally returns to normal, it’s pitch dark outside.

“Sorry,” he mutters, sounding horribly nasal.

Hakyeon smiles sadly. “It’s alright. I… sort of knew that was coming. I wish I could have prepared you for it better.”

At least they have each other. From what he understands, Hakyeon was alone when he was turned, and the thought of going through something like this alone hurts him to even consider. He shifts a little, moving closer to Hakyeon, and tips his head forward so their foreheads are resting together. “It’s okay. I don’t think you could have said anything to make that better.” He pauses, inhales, exhales. “I really am immortal, aren’t I? I’m never going to die.”

“No. I mean, there are ways, but generally, no. You’re… you’re stuck with me.” Hakyeon’s smile is pained, and Sanghyuk sighs.

He resists the urge to ask about said ways lest Hakyeon thinks he’s suicidal—he isn’t, just curious—and instead clutches Hakyeon a little tighter. “Good. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Initially he kisses Hakyeon to say thank you; he’s always given kisses away freely, and moreso now that he’s an incubus and it’s almost become a second language. But the kiss deepens, and he grabs Hakyeon’s face and pulls him closer, pouring out all the emotions he’s bottled up for the past three months into him—all the guilt, all the sorrow, all the anger, all flowing into Hakyeon, who drinks them in eagerly. It’s hot and passionate, and when Hakyeon pushes him back against the door and looks up at him he doesn’t bother moving. Losing himself in lust is an easy way for him to distract himself, and when Hakyeon shifts off his shirt he mirrors the movement, grinning when Hakyeon tweaks his nipple.

“Probably a bad idea,” he says under his breath as Hakyeon palms his cock. Even as he says that, he’s rocking up into Hakyeon’s hand, blinking up at him through his tear-heavy eyelashes so innocently. “Definitely a bad idea. We’re in _public_.”

Hakyeon winks at him before bending to kiss his way down Sanghyuk’s chest. “When have you ever cared about that?” he mumbles, and Sanghyuk snorts.

He deliberately doesn’t shift his jeans away to be difficult, and laughs when Hakyeon huffs as he pulls them down, spitting in his palm and circling it around Sanghyuk’s cock, slick and slow. He deliberately focuses on Hakyeon’s mouth, how good his lips look when he takes Sanghyuk’s length into his mouth. He deliberately digs his fingernails into his arm, the pain grounding him, making him be present in the moment—until he turns his head to the side and sees Hongbin, standing in front of the car and watching them through the windscreen.

“What the fuck!” he yells. His first instinctual reaction is to kick Hakyeon away, and he does that harder than he intends to—so hard, in fact, that Hakyeon’s head hits the glass with a sickening _crack_. He doesn’t even pause to apologise, though, just shifts his clothes back on and yanks open the door violently. “What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

Hongbin is angry, he realises, as he comes to a stop in front of him. Well, good. Sanghyuk’s angry too. “I’m watching my boyfriend be sucked off by another man for no goddamn reason at all!” Hongbin spits, his eyes flashing red at Sanghyuk in the darkness.

Aha. At least now Sanghyuk can put a name to that funny emotion he’s been seeing on Hongbin’s face for the past couple of months. At least now he knows why Hongbin scowls every time he feels that Sanghyuk has recently fed. The taste of jealousy is bitter on his tongue, and it’s not even _his_. “Don’t,” he snarls, taking a step forward so they’re eye-to-eye. He hears Hakyeon get out of the car behind him, but doesn’t even turn. “You don’t know the first thing about what happened here today, because you didn’t even give a shit enough to talk to me for the past week. And I am _not_ your boyfriend.”

“Then what am I? Just another one of your fuck toys? Someone to be used and thrown away?” Hongbin is ugly when he sneers, and Sanghyuk’s rage blinds him. “You disgust me.”

Something inside Sanghyuk breaks. “I can’t believe you just said that,” he murmurs, eyes wide, the pain rippling through him. By the look on Hongbin’s face—shocked, taken aback—he can’t believe he said it either. “Do you really think so low of me? Am I that base to you? Because let me tell you something, Hongbin. I need to fuck people to live.” He’s shaking again, he realises vaguely, only this time it’s not from panic but rather a quiet rage that shocks him to his core. “I didn’t ask to be changed into this, but I was, and I’m learning to deal with it. Hakyeon was there for me today when _you_ weren’t, so don’t you dare take the high road and pretend you’re better than me, better than both of us.”

“Sanghyuk.”

It’s Hakyeon, coming up beside him and laying a hand on his arm. Instantly he’s filled with calming feelings, and knows that this is Hakyeon’s desperate attempt to get him to stop—but he’s beyond that. All the snide glances and looks that Hongbin has been throwing his way all this time have finally let loose everything he’s been wanting to say, and he shakes his head resolutely.

“I am who I am,” he says, taking a deep breath in. “I did my job long before I met you, and I’ll do it for as long as I damn well please. I’ll fuck Hakyeon as many times as I damn well please, too, since you did not ask for us to be exclusive. You never _asked_ me to be your boyfriend. You _assumed_. I don’t take kindly to being labelled something I am not. If you can’t cope with who I am, then that’s on you.” Taking another step closer, he eyeballs Hongbin, resisting the urge to tear his throat out. The depth of his anger shocks him, a little, but he ignores it. Ignores the tears welling up in his eyes, too, because fuck, they were so _good_. They could have been so good. “The last thing I need in my life right now is someone attacking me for what I am, what I can’t help but be. So fuck off, Hongbin. Take your ugly jealousy somewhere else.”

A silence falls over them. He’s breathing hard, panting, really, but Hongbin is a statue, stiller and paler than Sanghyuk has ever seen him. He knows that he’ll regret saying all of this later—more like immediately, because the anger is slowly bleeding out of him—but right now he can’t move, is frozen in place by the weight of what they’ve both said. It hurts, more than he thought it would. Is Hongbin really disgusted by him? Is what he is really that appalling?

He turns and shifts into the first bird he thinks of, a raven, big and black and ugly, and flaps his wings and takes to the sky. “Wait,” he hears Hongbin call from behind him, but he doesn’t turn back.

“Leave him,” Hakyeon mutters, and even to Sanghyuk’s bird-ears he can feel the anger in those words. If he could smile, he would, because he has no doubt Hakyeon is going to chew Hongbin out worse than he did.

He flies through the snow towards home, his heart feeling heavier than it ever has before.


	4. four

“You’re different, you know.”

Sanghyuk keeps his eyes trained on Sungjae’s tie as he does it up, because that’s easier than facing up to the scrutiny of his gaze. “Different? How?” he asks, trying to sound disinterested and failing.

“You vanish for months without a word from anyone.” Sungjae starts listing off points on his fingers. “When you come back, you’re weirdly hotter, but I can’t pinpoint how. And I don’t think you got plastic surgery. You’re refusing to do outcalls, which is weird because you never used to do incalls. And now you’re moping around and being all emo.”

He’s known Sungjae for nearly as long as he’s known Hakyeon, so it’s no surprise that he’s able to pick up on all the ways Sanghyuk’s changed since autumn—but that doesn’t mean he deserves answers, and he tightens Sungjae’s tie with a raised eyebrow. “It’s complicated,” he says, and looks Sungjae in the eye. “Turn around.”

Obediently, Sungjae does, letting Sanghyuk slide his jacket on for him. In the mirror, their eyes meet, and Sungjae’s lips quirk up. “Come on, Sanghyuk. You can tell me.”

Yet another part of all this he hates. The secrecy. It’s fine for Hakyeon, who spends most of his time with immortals, who doesn’t have to hide whenever his eyes turn yellow, who doesn’t have to think twice about shapeshifting. Sanghyuk has to pretend to be mortal in front of his clients, and it’s exhausting. Facing another eternity of this, of being saddled with a secret he didn’t ask for and doesn’t quite know what to do with, is draining to even consider. “Boyfriend trouble,” he mutters eventually as he smooths out Sungjae’s jacket, knowing that he’ll have to give him something or else they’ll be here forever.

“Boyfriend trouble!” Sungjae whirls around and folds his arms over his chest, his posture accusing. “You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend. That’s… wow. And he’s okay with…”

Crossing the room to where Sungjae’s briefcase lays, discarded from where he’d thrown it after he’d entered, Sanghyuk picks it up and offers it to him. “No, and that’s the trouble.”

For a moment he thinks that Sungjae will refuse to go to his meeting and will stay and insist they talk it out, which is the last thing Sanghyuk wants to do right now—but then he sighs and takes the briefcase, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Do not think that I’ve dropped this,” he warns as he presses a quick kiss to Sanghyuk’s cheek. “I’ll see you next week.”

Sanghyuk waves him goodbye and pads down the hall to the kitchen, reaching in the pantry to make himself a coffee. Sungjae’s high profile job as the CEO of some company that Sanghyuk doesn’t give a shit about means he likes to come over really early in the morning—like now—or really late at night, and only one of those times works with Sanghyuk’s night owl habits. As well as work he also has a girlfriend waiting for him at home, hence his weird schedule. Sanghyuk’s made his peace with that long ago—he has to, as part of his job—but he tries not to dwell on it. What he does is not particularly ethical.

But then, neither is jumping people in alleys and drinking their blood.

He winces as he takes a sip of the coffee, turning to look out the window. They’re into February now—it’s been two miserable weeks since that disastrous night—and the snow is finally starting to abate, returning the city to its usual self. Two damn weeks and he hasn’t spoken to Hongbin. Hasn’t even spoken to Hakyeon, really; he calls and checks if Sanghyuk is okay, something he can already feel through the bond, but he’d listened when Sanghyuk had told him that he needed some space from immortal bullshit, and is keeping a respectful distance. For now. He can feel that Hakyeon’s starting to get antsy, and knows that his little oasis of solitude won’t last forever. And he knew that going into it; he has to sort things out with Hongbin, one way or another, but he’s just been… procrastinating.

He drinks his coffee staring out over the city, deliberately not letting his eyes stray to the pile of mail that’s sitting on his kitchen table. He doesn’t look at the letter nestling in the middle of it, the letter he’d nearly thrown out when he’d got it, the letter that’s written on heavy, old-fashioned paper with his name written in elegant cursive. He doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know it’s from Hongbin, and he also doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that Hakyeon probably goaded him into writing it. It really should be in the bin where it belongs, but he cannot bring himself to throw it out, just as much as he cannot bring himself to read it.

Padding back down the hall to the bedroom, coffee in hand, he reaches for his personal phone and checks it, even though he knows nothing’s changed from the last time he saw it when he first woke up to Sungjae banging on his door. One unanswered text from Hakyeon: _hey, are you doing alright?_ And one from Hongbin, which he’s left unread, but the preview says: _Sanghyuk, did you get my letter? I hope…_

He flops back on the bed and flings an arm over his eyes. The anger has mostly abated, and all that’s left is residual feelings of melancholy and bereavement. He can’t deny it and tell himself that there was nothing between them, because there _was_ , and that’s why it hurts so much now. But he doesn’t hate himself enough to change to be with Hongbin, and Hongbin can’t seem to accept him for what he is—so where can they go from here? It’s a no-brainer, but that doesn’t explain why his heart physically aches whenever he thinks of the way Hongbin had looked, horrified and taken aback at himself, and the way he’d sounded when he’d called out after him.

“Fuck,” he blurts aloud to his empty apartment, flinging the phone onto the bed behind him and wrapping his arms around his legs.

What had Hongbin said, back when things were still new between them? _Interspecies relationships never work out anyway_. At the time he’d felt vaguely horrified at the realisation that he and Hongbin were two different species, but more concerned that Hongbin was referring to them instead of Hakyeon and Jaehwan. Well, what a fucking laugh that turned out to be. He turned out to be right, after all, not that Sanghyuk would ever give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

//

It’s another two days before the peace he’d created for himself slowly starts to be disassembled.

It starts with a cryptic phone call from Hakyeon in the morning—although half the words out of his mouth are cryptic, these days, so that’s no surprise. “Sanghyuk?” he blurts, but he’s giggling, and in the background Sanghyuk can hear another voice, higher than Hakyeon’s own. “How are you? Have you heard anything from Hongbin?”

“Nothing past the text and the… and the letter,” he replies, cracking open an eye to look at the time. It’s absurdly early, 8 am, and he has to wonder if Hakyeon’s drunk and has been out all night. “Why?”

“He’s been asking about you. Every day.” Hakyeon giggles again, and the sound is so grating Sanghyuk considers hanging up. “Stop it! Get off me! Um… do you think you’re going to read the letter any time soon?”

His curiosity is beginning to overpower his desire to stay in the dark, but he still hasn’t gone near the damned thing. The envelope itself is so heavy he can’t tell whether Hongbin wrote page after page after page, or just used really expensive paper; he’s almost too scared to find out. At least now he knows where they stand, where he stands. Opening up how he feels about Hongbin again is just a disaster waiting to happen, and he’s had quite enough of disasters for the time being. “I don’t know,” he replies honestly, sighing. “Maybe? I don’t know if it would be worth it.”

“You should.” Suddenly serious, Sanghyuk hears Hakyeon inhale and exhale shakily. “He fucked up really badly, and he knows it. I’m not saying you have to get back with him, or declare your love, or anything as dramatic as that. I just think you should talk to him and see where things go from there. He’s pretty miserable.”

 _Same_ , Sanghyuk thinks with a wry smile. “Thanks for your wisdom, Confucius,” he says instead, because he doesn’t need to explain to Hakyeon how he feels, not when he can tell already. “I’ll let you get back to… whatever you’re doing.”

“Let me know,” Hakyeon says, and Sanghyuk can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll talk to you later in the week. Bye!”

Hakyeon hangs up promptly, and Sanghyuk stares at his phone, his lips twitching. How odd. He could have sworn he heard the fluttering of feathers in the background as Hakyeon spoke—but surely not? Shrugging, he puts his phone back on his bedside table and rolls over, closing his eyes to try and go back to sleep. He’s probably hearing things. It’s probably just his tired mind playing tricks on him.

//

One of the parts of being at work he didn’t miss is the tedium of it. At least now with his shifting he doesn’t have to worry about shaving, but the rest of it—his skincare routine, making sure he smells nice, making sure he’s stocked up on condoms and lube and toys, making sure his house is clean—is exhausting. At least it serves as a distraction, a way to keep his mind from straying towards immortal matters (aka Hongbin), which is why when his bell rings the next night he thinks it’s a client and not Wonshik—but that’s exactly who is standing in the lobby, peering at the camera suspiciously like it might bite him.

“Won—hyung?” he starts awkwardly. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. Can I come up?”

Sanghyuk can’t get a read on him, so he just clears his throat and shifts his weight. “Um, sure. Come up. I’m on the third floor.”

The only thing that he and Wonshik have in common, apart from being immortal, is Hakyeon. That’s not to say they aren’t friends, but out of the little group Sanghyuk is the odd one out; Wonshik and Hongbin are bonded, and while Wonshik isn’t tied to Hakyeon magically it’s clear their friendship runs deep. Wonshik tends to be a little guarded around new people (he is, at least, less guarded with Sanghyuk then he was with Jaehwan), so he and Sanghyuk haven’t really got the opportunity to get close yet. Hence why he thinks he knows why Wonshik is paying him a visit out of the blue; it has to be something to do with Hongbin, and that has his stomach churning with nerves.

He props open his front door with the umbrella he keeps next to it for that purpose, and digs a blood bag out of the freezer, sticking it in the microwave and resisting the urge to wrinkle his nose. He’d kept a number of these around when he and Hongbin were—were seeing each other, and had just shoved them in the freezer to get them out of his sight after their fight. He has a feeling frozen blood probably tastes disgusting—fresh is best, from what Hongbin has told him, but chilled is alright—but he’ll be damned if he’s going to let Wonshik in his home without being polite and offering him… food. That’s one thing Sanghyuk does know about him; he’s old-fashioned, to the point that it makes Hakyeon roll his eyes sometimes. Honourific use is pretty loose between immortals, from what Sanghyuk can tell, but he’s always careful to refer to Wonshik as hyung. He kinda wants to befriend him, because he’s heard some of the shit he and Hakyeon have got up to in the past and he isn’t as uptight as he seems, and if the way to his heart is by respecting his weird hangups about politeness, then Sanghyuk is happy to oblige.

“Hey, hyung,” he calls when he sees Wonshik push open the door. “You can come in. Make yourself at home.”

Smiling—it’s a pained smile, but it’s a start nonetheless—Wonshik sits on the sofa, eyeing Sanghyuk. “What the hell is on your face?”

“My—my face?” Sanghyuk has no idea what Wonshik is talking about until he realises that he’s still wearing a face mask that he’d put on just before his doorbell rang. He rips it off and chucks in the sink quick as a snake, blushing. Whoops. “It’s a facemask. It’s meant to be good for your skin. Tighten up your pores and all that shit.” The microwave beeps, and he grabs the blood, biting his lip at the way it sloshes in his hands. “They’re probably a waste of money, but I keep buying them. Anyway. What’s up?”

“Thanks,” Wonshik murmurs, extending his fangs and biting into the bag neatly. He takes a sip of it and grimaces as Sanghyuk sits in the armchair opposite. “I just… I wanted to talk to you about Hongbin.”

Aha. His suspicions confirmed, Sanghyuk leans back in the chair. “Go on,” he says, tone guarded.

“I’m not going to implore that you two get back together, if that’s what you’re thinking. Hakyeon told me what happened, and he said some pretty heinous shit. I thought I’d brought him up better than to be so judgemental…” Wonshik shakes his head, frowning. “But he’s… it didn’t come from a cruel place. He did, does, care about you deeply. He has no idea how to show it, because he’s never felt like this about anyone before. He’s floundering.”

“No offence, hyung, because I know why you’re doing this—but I’m floundering too. That doesn’t give me an excuse to lash out like that. I can’t help the fact that I’m an incubus any less than he can help the fact that he’s a vampire.” He holds his hands up, a placating gesture, lest what he says offends Wonshik. “I don’t know why you turned him, because I’ve never asked, but I know he didn’t have a choice either. So we’re in the same boat. But I wasn’t an asshole.”

Raising an eyebrow, Wonshik takes another sip of the blood. “No, but you didn’t communicate with him, either. All of this could have been avoided if the both of you just sat down and talked it out months ago.”

His first instinct is to bristle, to protest, to rescind his invitation and watch Wonshik go flying out the window (is that how it works?)—but then he listens to what Wonshik’s saying and sags, knowing he’s right. He didn’t say that Hongbin disgusted him, but he let it get to that point, so he’s not exactly blameless, either. He knows this. He’s just been ignoring it, because it was easier to stick his head in the sand and play the victim and wallow in his melancholy. But wallowing is getting tiring, and the more he starts to rebuild his life the more he realises it doesn’t quite feel right without Hongbin in it… so maybe Wonshik has a point.

“Yeah,” he concedes, running a hand through his hair. “Probably. But what’s done is done. All I’ve got to show for it is that letter.” Gesturing to the table, where the letter still sits, he shrugs. “I don’t know if I… if I can give Hongbin what he’s looking for right now.”

Wonshik’s expression softens, and when he smiles Sanghyuk can see the genuine affection he has for Hongbin. “I don’t think Hongbin wants anything but you,” he says, leaning forward, and Sanghyuk presses his hands to his cheeks automatically, trying to quell the rising heat.

There’s no more words between them as Wonshik finishes his blood and gets up to leave, offering Sanghyuk a small smile and a clap on the shoulder as he goes. It’s a start, that contact, and Sanghyuk knows that at least one good thing has come out of all of this—Wonshik has started to look at him like he’s a person, rather than a liability, and that’s definitely a positive.

When he turns from the front door, his eyes fall on the letter, nestled amongst all the other mail he definitely hasn’t been reading (bills, probably, but he doesn’t care). Slowly, dreamily, he steps over to the kitchen table and picks it up, weighing it in his hands, feeling the creaminess of the paper underneath his fingers. He snorts. Hongbin might claim to not be old-fashioned, but Wonshik has rubbed off on him more than he’d care to admit; Sanghyuk’s never gotten a proper letter from anyone before. Hongbin’s return address on the back is written smoothly in blood-red ink, and that makes him raise an eyebrow. Vampires. He doesn’t think he’ll ever understand them, no matter how hard he tries, and he’s sure Hongbin feels the same about him.

It’s this that makes him take the letter with him as he crawls into bed, slipping his thumb under the edge of the envelope and popping it open. The paper inside is just as weighty as the envelope, buttery and expensive, and the letter is written in the same blood-red ink. His name, written in crimson like that, is startling, and before he can stop himself he bites his bottom lip and begins to read.

//

He considers texting Hakyeon for advice, but knows what the answer will be. In fact, every single person he knows who he can talk to about this—and considering it’s just Hakyeon and Wonshik, it’s not a lot to go off—will give him the same answer. So he doesn’t ask anyone for advice, and just does it, figuring he needs to talk to Hongbin sooner or later and it may as well be sooner. It’s a text, because he’s a coward and he doesn’t think he can cope with hearing Hongbin’s voice, not after that fucking letter.

BingBong: _Sanghyuk, did you get my letter? I hope it reached you safely, and I hope you read it._  
Sanghyukie: _i read it._

It’s past dark, but he has no idea what Hongbin could be doing; if he’s out hunting there’s no way he’s getting a reply until tomorrow. But as he sits there like that, curled up on his lounge and staring out at the city, his phone vibrates in his hands with a reply almost instantly.

BingBong: _Oh. Well, that’s good, then._  
Sanghyukie: _yeah_.  
BingBong: _Yes_.  
Sanghyukie: _u text like an old man_  
BingBong: _I was made in 1919_  
BingBong: _We didn’t have texting then_  
BingBong: _You know this._  
Sanghyukie: _yeah but ur easy to wind up_  
BingBong: _Ah. I see. It is hard to read tone through text._  
Sanghyukie: _come over then_  
BingBong: _Really?_  
Sanghyukie: _rly_  
BingBong: _Okay. omw!_  
BingBong: _I googled that one. It means ‘on my way’_  
Sanghyukie: _I kno_

Hongbin doesn’t take long; he drives like a menace when he’s in a hurry, as Sanghyuk’s been unfortunate enough to experience, and it’s late enough that there’s no traffic. Which means that he only has twenty minutes or so to tidy up the place, nerves fluttering in his belly. Hongbin’s never cared about the state of his apartment before, but now that things are so different between them it feels like they’re tiptoeing around each other like strangers—and he wouldn’t let a stranger see his apartment messy. By the time his doorbell rings he’s just finished wiping down his counter neurotically, and he shapeshifts into jeans and a jumper as he buzzes Hongbin in, turning to the mirror that hangs in the entrance to fix his hair.

“Hey,” he blurts as soon as he yanks open the door, already blushing when Hongbin hasn’t even said anything. “You can come in. I mean, you already can because I invited you last time. That wasn’t me, like, _vampire_ inviting you in. That was me being polite. So, come in.”

Hongbin looks at him funnily as he steps inside, and Sanghyuk feels hot all over. He blabbers when he gets nervous, always has; Hongbin’s just never seen it before because he’s never had cause to be nervous around him. “Thanks,” Hongbin replies, shifting his weight on his feet a little. “Um, do you—”

His heart in his throat—this loud he knows Hongbin can hear it, wouldn’t be surprised if Wonshik could hear it from all the way across the city—he steps closer, putting himself in Hongbin’s orbit deliberately, and stretches out a hand towards his face. He wants to touch, so fucking badly, but doesn’t know if that’s allowed in the redefined space of their relationship. Hongbin, for his part, looks shocked, blinking worriedly as Sanghyuk’s face hovers above his cheek. “Er,” he says, and when he speaks Sanghyuk can see his fangs are out. “Sanghyuk? What are you—?”

Moving on instinct, he pulls Hongbin in for a kiss, pressing up against him and relishing at how cold he is. Hongbin’s arms come around him automatically, settling on his waist, firm and strong like he’s not going to let Sanghyuk go—and now he likes the idea of that, likes being Hongbin’s, likes the way how Hongbin’s mouth feels like home against his own. “That’s what I’m doing,” he huffs, pulling back and resting one hand on Hongbin’s cheek properly.

“I thought you were inviting me over here to talk,” Hongbin whines, but he’s smiling and before Sanghyuk can move he swoops in to pepper his cheeks with soft kisses that make him screw up his face in mild protest. “This—isn’t—talking.”

“I didn’t say anything about talking,” he grumbles. “I could have been inviting you over here to fuck, for all you know.”

Hongbin’s smile is wry, and Sanghyuk melts a little at the sight of it. “But you didn’t.” It’s not a question but a statement, spoken with confidence, and it’s this that makes Sanghyuk know he’s done the right thing.

“No, I didn’t,” he replies, taking Hongbin’s hand and leading him to the sofa. He settles there, patting the cushion next to him, leaning his head on Hongbin’s shoulder when he sits down. “We do need to talk. Your letter was…”

Hongbin stills, and Sanghyuk feels the weight of his transgressions as he looks away. Opening up about his past life, about his family, doesn’t hurt anymore; Hongbin hasn’t done it for ninety-seven years, so it’s no surprise that he’s skittish about it. “Hey,” he whispers, lacing their fingers together and squeezing, trying to keep Hongbin in the present. “It’s okay. Your letter was beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with me.”

At those words, Hongbin sags, his shoulders slumping. He still can’t look at Sanghyuk, but he squeezes back. “Thank you for reading it,” he says, and he’s quieter than Sanghyuk has ever heard him. “And I’m sorry about what I said. You don’t disgust me. You could never disgust me.”

“You don’t disgust me, but you sure do confound me,” Sanghyuk muses.

Hongbin turns to look at him at that, an eyebrow raised. “You’ve been hanging around Hakyeon and Wonshik too much. That’s such an old fashioned word, confound.”

“That’s a bit rich coming from _you_ , considering you wrote me a fucking letter in cursive and you had to google what ‘omw’ is. You’re the most old-fashioned out of them all.” Even as he says this, he’s grinning. Perhaps the part he missed the most about Hongbin was the banter, the easy back-and-forth that comes to them as naturally as breathing; he and Hakyeon have it too, but not like this. “But, Hongbin,” he says, becoming serious, “it’s okay. I forgive you, and I know you don’t really think of me like that. And I’m sorry too… I shouldn’t have buried my head in the sand in regards to us. I shouldn’t have let it get to that point.”

“So,” Hongbin sighs, pulling Sanghyuk closer so they’re completely intertwined. His voice is hesitant, scared, and the vulnerability just endears him to Sanghyuk even more. “Provided I won’t get jealous anymore, which I won’t… What… are we?”

His heart skips a beat at that. That’s a question that’s long-overdue when it comes to the two of them, except now he knows why Hongbin’s so damn nervous, why, if he had a heart, it would be beating wildly. Such an open-ended question. So many answers Sanghyuk can give. The one that forms on his tongue, though, is not the easy one, nor is it the one that he would have chosen a month ago. But he also knows that it’s the right one, so he straightens his shoulders and gives Hongbin’s hand another squeeze. “Boyfriends?”

When Hongbin looks up, he’s grinning wider than Sanghyuk’s ever seen him, and before he can move he’s tackled backwards onto the sofa, Hongbin peppering more kisses all over his face, quick and soft. “I thought you’d never ask,” he breathes with bright eyes, and as Sanghyuk looks up at him he knows, he knows, he’s found his solace at last.

//

_Dear Sanghyuk,_

_I suppose I should start by apologising. That is, after all, the purpose of this letter. But I’ve never been very good at saying sorry—whether that’s because I have not had much opportunity to, or because my words are never enough, I’m not sure. But know this: I am truly sorry. I should not have said what I said. You do not disgust me. You could never disgust me, no matter what you did, and I deeply regret that I ever allowed myself to say those words because I know how much it hurt you; I could see it on your face._

_I also suppose I should try and justify my actions. They are, of course, unjustifiable; I have spent the last three months looking upon you with bitterness where there should have been nothing but affection. But perhaps I can explain a little to help you understand why I am like I am. I know I have not told you much about myself, and that is because I have spent the good part of ninety-seven years trying to forget who I was when I was mortal. It is a natural consequence of being turned, I think. Wonshik hyung can’t even remember what it was like to have a heartbeat, and I know Hakyeon hyung does not miss his mortal life at all. I didn’t think I would forget, even though mortality offered me nothing special, but I have. Seeing you go through what I went through has brought it all rushing back._

_I was born into a tumultuous period of history, and my family mirrored that. Believe it or not, Hakyeon hyung, Wonshik hyung and I were all born in Joseon; I at the tail end of it. I will spare you the history lesson, but it was not a very pleasant time. My family was… fractured. I was not close to my older sisters, and my parents were nearly always fighting. It wasn’t until I was older that I realised why, and after that things began to click into place. My mother constantly cheated on my father. She would not care if we children saw her bringing strange men home. When my father found out, he would go on great tirades that lasted hours. He never lay a hand on her—I don’t think he would have dared to give her an excuse to leave—but he threw furniture around. One of my earliest memories is of my oldest sister ushering me back to my bedroom while they screamed at each other._

_I never came out to them. I never really came out to myself. I wasn’t much interested in relationships, anyway, because why would I be? Screaming and crying and jealousy was normal, for me, and I wanted no part of it. But when I first realised that I wasn’t normal, that I didn’t want a wife and children and a Japanese name, I just… ignored it. It was easier, that way. I wasn’t asexual, not like Wonshik hyung, but I just turned my face away from all types of romantic interest. It was too messy, too complicated, too painful._

_And then, of course, I met Hakyeon._

_Funny that, isn’t it? How he has such an influence on people. Unlike you, his dancing did not draw me in. He came in with Wonshik hyung, to the church basement where we worked in secret those days (I will tell you about that another time… but I was involved in a rebellion, of sorts, against the Japanese occupation), and I knew they were different. I didn’t know how, I just knew they were, and they were fascinating. Otherworldly and beautiful and cold. Wonshik hyung was steely-grey, Hakyeon hyung was a pale blue, and I watched from the corner as they spoke to the leader of our little group. Well, Wonshik hyung did. Hakyeon hyung looked bored. We locked eyes across the room, and a jolt ran through me. It sounds like something out of those cheesy romance novels he reads, but it was so strong I_ felt _it. I didn’t know they were immortal at the time—I did not know such creatures existed—but I knew somehow that they would be the death of me._

_I don’t think I fell in love with Hakyeon—any more than anyone who meets him does—but he certainly made me reevaluate myself, what it was I wanted from life, who I could become. That was, of course, all cut short when I made a stupid decision, against their advice, and Wonshik hyung turned me. I saw with new eyes, and what I saw frightened me. I saw eternity, stretched out in front of me, and I died. The mortal part of me died and I never bothered to get him back. What use was he? I was a creature of the night, stalking mortals, drinking their blood and drifting through life until—well, until I saw you naked and covered in blood on Hakyeon’s living room floor. Romantic, isn’t it?_

_You were, are, so free. Immortality suits you. I know you think it doesn’t, but it really does. I don’t know if that’s a Hakyeon trait, one he has passed on to you, but I know that soon you will be comfortable in your new skin. Your freeness made me jealous, and that brought back the fears from my childhood, which made me afraid to lose you, which made me cling harder, which made it hurt more when I saw you sleeping with other people. Unlike you and Hakyeon hyung, I have not learned to separate sex from love. I repressed that ugly jealousy, that idiotic trauma from a life I have nearly forgotten, for ninety-seven years and of course the time it chose to spring up was a time when you were at your most vulnerable. I should have known that your instinctive reaction, when upset, is to turn to Hakyeon hyung. I do know this. But I am inadequate when compared to him, always have been, and it frightened me terribly to think I might lose you… to him. Your bond with him is different to the one I have with Wonshik hyung (and not just because he is not into sex). Perhaps it’s a species thing; perhaps vampire comfort is not delivered through touch but through words and gifts, a kind placation offered here, an offer of blood there. I am hardly an expert on immortal affairs, and I didn’t want to ask. Which is how we ended up where we did._

_I do not know where to go from here. I am sorry that I let it spiral this far, and I am sorry that hurting you was the thing that made me wake up to myself and realise how stupid and petty I have been. I only hope that by reading this you at least gain some insight into why I acted like I did, even though nothing excuses it. I can also only hope that we can be friends again—because you are great company and also I love Mario Kart but Wonshik hyung won’t play it with me—or something more, if you’d like. Because I still harbour a lot of affection for you. And I know now that my jealousy is completely inappropriate and does not belong anywhere near the two of us. If there even is a two of us, I mean. You know what I mean._

_Thank you for reading this, and thank you for… for being you, and bringing back a part of my humanity I didn’t realise I still possessed._

_Yours,_  
_Hongbin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really don't know how this got so long jesus christ
> 
> fun fact 1: oli (one of my closest friends, who has also been my beta throughout this whole series) pointed out that I rely on penetrative sex too much, and he's right. hence why this instalment has no penetration.
> 
> fun fact 2: next up is wonshik + hongbin's backstory
> 
> fun fact 3: the title from this song is from _wicked game_ by chris isaak and the whole song relates to hyukbin so much
> 
> thanks for reading! ♡


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